


False Dichotomy

by racheldawnamber



Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Ending, F/F, Gen, Unofficial Sequel, but i dont shy away from anything the game dealt with, polarize was bullshit yall, trigger warnings r basically just... nothing more extreme than the content the game deals with
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-10-26
Updated: 2017-04-05
Packaged: 2018-08-27 01:26:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 29,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8382553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/racheldawnamber/pseuds/racheldawnamber
Summary: Evidently, the universe had no intent of letting Max save Chloe. The jury was still out on whether Rachel could.





	1. Chapter 1

Chloe's funeral should have been the hardest thing Max ever lived through, but she couldn't bring herself to be upset. It didn't feel real to her, no more permanent than any other time she'd seen Chloe's corpse. She didn't cry once during the entire service, though she did wonder self-consciously if the other people in attendance thought she was cold-hearted.

The last few days of her life had been a blur, moving by without any initiative or recognition on her part. She was asked about the crime she had witnessed, she was recommended counseling, she was offered time off from school to cope with her grief, and it all flew past her without a moment's thought.

The only thing she really kept in mind was the storm, and the dire consequences of meddling with time. She didn't use her rewind power once, which was strange to her. At one point she had knocked over a glass of water and simply stared at it, at a loss for what to do. In a few seconds, she remembered herself and started searching for paper towels, but for a few moments, she had utterly _stopped_.

At the funeral, she made no mistakes worthy of a rewind. She didn't fall over or sneeze into the casket or any number of things that could have gone wrong. It simply came and went, cloaked in the same feeling of unreality she'd grown used to. It might have even been comforting to her.

"Hey, Max?"

She was snapped out of her train of thought- or perhaps the absence thereof- by a sharp voice. She was exiting the cemetery with the rest of the small group of people who had attended the burial, and had been approached by Victoria.

Most of the people who had shown up were either Chloe's classmates or friends, so Victoria's attendance had been something of a surprise. Max suspected she'd come out of a sense of responsibility, either for Nathan's actions or her own unkindnesses to Chloe when they'd attended Blackwell together. Her face was unreadable to Max, but that was the case for most faces, especially as of late.

"Yeah?" She didn't make eye contact, not quite sure how to carry the conversation.

"I, uhm…" Victoria paused. "Could we talk? Like, just us."

"I didn't know anyone else was talking," she replied unhelpfully.

"You know what I mean," she insisted. "Just… let's hang back a little, okay?" Even Max, tactless as she was, could tell Victoria sounded like she was being made to eat poison. Max was tempted to be belligerent, but it was clear Victoria was already reluctant to do this, and pushing it might deter her entirely.

"Sure."

The pair slowed, falling back to the back of the group. There really weren't that many people, which Max found sad in an indistinct, distant way.

Once they were far enough back for Victoria to be satisfied, she turned to Max, searching for eye contact that she wasn't granted. The pained, reluctant look returned to her face.

"What I wanted to say was that I'm sorry. I've been awful to a lot of people for a lot of stupid reasons, and one of those people is you, so. I'm sorry."

Max didn't accept or reject the apology, addressing an entirely different subject. "Why did you come?"

"Huh?"

"Why did you come to the funeral. Do you even know Chloe?"

Victoria was caught off guard, which didn't help how out of her comfort zone she already was. "Not really, no," she answered honestly. "When she still went to Blackwell I just thought she was some asshole stoner." She trailed off a little, uncomfortable talking about the deceased.

Max was not similarly put off. "So why are you here?"

"... When I heard about Chloe, I started thinking about Rachel Amber. The girl in all the posters. She went missing toward the end of last year, and-"

"I know about Rachel Amber. I just don't get what she has to do with you coming to Chloe's funeral."

Victoria seemed rather startled by Max's brusqueness but continued. "I just started thinking about how shitty I was to her, you know? And I just felt like… I might have set the ball rolling on all of this. Rachel dies or runs away or whatever happened to her, Chloe drops out, she gets shot… I know it's stupid, but I can't stop thinking about it."

Max came very, very close to laughing at Victoria's roundabout sense of responsibility for Chloe's death. The irony of the situation was almost unbearable.

"Plus, there was never a funeral for Rachel, and I thought this was probably the closest thing to that… They were really close. Like sisters or something," she said, skirting around the definite un-sisterly relationship between them.

However, Max did latch onto a certain part of her sentence. "They didn't have a service for Rachel?"

"Of course not. They're still not sure if she's even dead. I mean… Anyone who's not stupid is sure she is, but they never found a body. Her parents are in denial about it."

"They didn't-" Max frowned, trying to remember the details she'd halfheartedly watched rush by her over the last few days. Had the Dark Room not been discovered? Was that supposed to have happened yet? She hadn't done anything to nudge the investigation along, was she supposed to interfere? Or would that screw the timeline and start everything over?

Her head ached a little.

"Max? Are you okay?" Victoria frowned. "Sorry, this is a shitty time to be talking about this."

"I'm fine," she replied unconvincingly, her eyes slightly unfocused. She needed to figure this out, pin down her misstep. "They haven't found Rachel Amber. That's what you said?"

"Yes?"

"Yes they have or yes they haven't?"

"Rachel Amber is still missing. Max, what's wrong?"

"Is Mark Jefferson still the photography teacher?"

"What's that got to do with anything?"

"Just tell me, Victoria."

"What's going on with you? Two seconds ago you were acting normal- normal for you, anyway- and now you're... I don't know,  _off_."

"Stress," she lied openly. "I'm just having a long day. Now tell me."

"Max. Do you know something about Rachel Amber?" Victoria was more astute than Max had given her credit to be. "You hadn't moved to Arcadia Bay yet when she disappeared, though, had you?"

"Just tell me if Jefferson's still teaching, Victoria."

"What does Jefferson have to do with this?" She wasn't budging, but the gears were turning faster than Max could run damage control. "Are… Are you saying he did it?"

"I'm not saying anything!" Maybe Victoria was refusing to answer, but Max could guess from her response that Jefferson hadn't been convicted or even suspected of anything. She could also guess that in the span of one conversation she'd interrupted the natural procession of this timeline and she already felt sick at the notion of trying to fix it.

"It makes sense, though, doesn't it?!" Victoria's eyes were wide. "She was his favorite student, and they'd always spend time together after classes. They might have even been fucking. If anyone did it, it was him." Then she frowned. "You were in a different _state_ , how-"

"Victoria. If you give one shit about me, Chloe, or Rachel, or even just _yourself_ , do this for me- please keep your mouth shut."

"Max, are you _crazy_? I can't just-"

"Yes you can, so do it. And be quiet for just one second so I can think, _please_."

For about three seconds, Victoria obliged her, and she took these seconds gladly. This timeline was obviously screwed, because original timeline Max couldn't have known any of what she'd just implied to Victoria, so she'd have to scrap it. How far back would she need to jump? Would it be enough to just redo the funeral and not have this conversation? Or would that be considered interfering?

It occurred to her that maybe no matter what course of action she took she'd be interfering with the natural timeline, because her natural action had been to save Chloe, and she hadn't. That was a dead-end thought so she shelved it for now.

Unfortunately, she was met with another dead-end regardless. She couldn't just jump back to before the funeral, because she hadn't taken any photos for days. She'd at least be going back to before Chloe's death. Was this her life now? Dancing on the edge of oversharing, slipping up, and moving back to square one every time she took a wrong move? She couldn't live like this.

"Max, I can't just keep quiet about this," Victoria interrupted her thoughts. "I owe it to Rachel, at least. I need to tell someone- the cops, maybe-"

"Shh!" Rachel. Rachel. Could it be Rachel?

All these timelines were a matter of constants and variables. Max was the variable, really. Every action she took, every mistake she made, affected the outcome, whether the timeline was viable or needed to be ended, cauterized by the storm. But she didn't know which ones mattered. All she knew was that every timeline ended with Chloe dead.

But didn't every timeline end with everyone dead? It was just the timing. It would be fine by her if Chloe died, 90 years old, after a long happy life. The problem was Chloe dying so immediately. Hadn't Chloe once said that Rachel had saved her life? In more of an abstract, implied-suicide way. Rachel was another constant, one Max hadn't ever even thought to try and change. Nathan Prescott had killed both Chloe and Rachel. Max didn't know when her powers had been granted to her, only that the first time she'd used them was to save Chloe.

Nothing made any sense, and it felt like she was heaping mounds of conjecture together all while grasping at straws, but she was running out of options. The timeline she was in wouldn't work. The next one probably wouldn't, either. She couldn't live like this, walking on eggshells and unsure if any move of hers might irreparably screw reality. She hadn't even been far enough through this one to know that the storm really wouldn't come for her.

"I need to go." She didn't even turn to Victoria as she dismissed her, walking as quickly as she could away.

"What?! Max, if you don't explain all of this, I'll-"

"I'll explain everything later, I promise," she said, with absolutely no intent of explaining anything.

 

When she got back to her dorm room she immediately started rummaging through old photos. Rachel Amber's missing posters claimed she had disappeared on April 22nd. Max needed to find one from just before then- Saturday morning was her best bet.

She hadn't brought over old ones from home to the dorm, obviously, and she swore when she realized it. _Duh_. Trying her second best option, she grabbed her phone and started checking as many social media profiles as she could.

Twitter was her savior. She found a selfie from early afternoon on the 20th. It would press her for time, but she could work with it.

Awkwardly, she saved the photo and ran to the library to print it; she hadn't yet tried to travel through a digital selfie, and right now wasn't the time for experimentation. As soon as she had a physical copy, and after offering no explanation to a confused librarian, she tried to clear her head and focus.

This was, objectively, a very bad idea. She'd tried going back to stop things before they started, and it had always ended badly. But things were already bad, and it was clear to her that just allowing time to march on without her wasn't an option. This timeline, this interlude had served its purpose; the universe had taken its breath, stabilized. It was now time for her to tear it all apart or die trying.

An unpleasantly familiar sensation of vertigo, a headache, and fear overtook her.

 

* * *

 

Maybe it wasn't very punk of her, but homework wasn't nearly as agonizing for Chloe as she wanted people to think it was.

Math, in particular, she'd always had a knack for. It just made _sense_. There were rules, formulas, and variables, and so long as she understood them they were all perfectly logical and predictable. If she didn't understand it, she could learn it, with a little free time and some help. She had a very active Khan Academy account, one of her best-kept secrets.

She'd been tackling a particularly contrived calculus problem when she heard a knock on the door downstairs. It was too late in the day for it to be mail, so it was probably David; he'd been out running errands for her mom since a couple of hours ago. She grimaced and started hiding _the evidence_ , packing her homework into folders and putting out her cigarette. Preparing for impact was a well-practiced routine but it still sucked, and she considered faking sleep. If she was lucky he'd leave her alone. If she wasn't she'd get yelled at for wasting the day and not doing something productive like homework.

She heard her mom open the front door, and before she could decide whether to bite the bullet and go downstairs, she got a surprise- it wasn't his aggressive, intimidating voice that she heard, although it _was_ familiar. It was uncannily similar to- but certainly couldn't be- a particular childhood friend. It couldn't be her, though, because she'd moved away years ago without so much as a word since, and even if she was in the neighborhood for some reason, it wasn't as if she'd turn up out of the blue without so much as a phone call. That was ridiculous. It couldn't be her, and she shot down the idea as quickly as she had it, ignoring the small feeling of hope that had latched onto her before she could stop it. 

She left her bedroom and started quietly moving to the top of the stairs to see who was at the door. Before she made it there, though, her mom yelled up the stairs, "Chloe! Got someone here for you!" Needing no further invitation, she rushed down the stairs, well-practiced at barreling down them without breaking her neck. She was about halfway down when she saw her hopes fulfilled against all odds- Max Caulfield was in the doorway, looking much more tired but not an inch taller than when they'd last met.

There were a great number of emotions swirling through Chloe's mind when she saw Max. Anger was definitely there, after so long without a word exchanged between them, but it was trumped by sheer excitement, and then curiosity- why was she here? She looked disheveled, even distressed. Was she alright?

"Max!" She couldn't think of anything better to say, and she was smiling despite her misgivings. Her mother stepped aside from the door to let the two meet properly. Max smiled, and despite looking tired and a little pained, she seemed relieved.

Confusion was winning out over the thrill of seeing her old friend again, and Chloe stopped just short of scooping Max up into a hug. "What's up? What're you doing here?"

"Long story," she said, sounding a little out of it. Was she on something? She sent a pointed look at Chloe's mom, who didn't notice it, but Chloe did.

Chloe hoped she was understanding Max right, taking her by the shoulder and grinning widely. "Man, it's been forever. How about we go on a drive and catch up? I'll be back in a few, Mom," she called back into the house as she pulled Max gently along to her truck.

"A _few_ , huh?" Joyce shook her head but didn't stop them, clearly glad to see Max again but not too dense to see that something was off. She'd ask later, Chloe guessed.

 

As soon as the truck was started she turned to Max. "What's going on? You look like shit, no offense, and I don't think you're back here for the sightseeing."

"I just spent, like, two hours hopping buses trying to get over here," she replied, slouching back into her seat. "Just.. give me your phone. I need you to drive somewhere."

Chloe frowned, but handed over her cell phone. "Are you okay? I know it's been a while- thanks for that, by the way- but I know you and you're either freaking out or high or both."

"Closer to the first one," she replied, not looking up from the phone. She was punching in an address to the GPS, but Chloe couldn't see where it was. "Do you know what time it is?"

"... Max, you're holding my phone."

"Oh, yeah. Sorry." Max pulled out her own phone to check the time. If Chloe wasn't worried before, she was now.

"Are you sure we shouldn't be going to like… a hospital, maybe?" She half-joked.

"I just need a nap," Max tried to reassure Chloe, not to much success.

"It's like five in the afternoon."

"It's been a long day." She handed Chloe's phone back to her, the GPS set to a fairly remote spot Chloe had never driven to before. She street viewed it to sate her curiosity, and found that it was a dilapidated old barn.

"... So why are we going to MurderBarn U.S.A.?"

"Chloe, if I had the energy to explain, I would, I promise. Just trust me."

She wasn't sure whether to press Max further or not. She looked exhausted, moreso by the minute, and she definitely wasn't helpful in her current state. But the whole thing seemed strange at best and dangerous at worst. A weird, out-of-it maybe-stoned childhood friend just shows up in the middle of the afternoon, out of nowhere, no warning, no text saying 'hey, Chloe, guess who's in town!'? And for some reason it's a matter of life and death to drive to some crappy old barn out in the sticks?

She sighed. "Yeah. Take a nap. I'll wake you up when we get there."

"Thanks." She went out like a light, and even the old truck's shitty suspension couldn't jolt her back awake.

 

"Hey, Max. We're here. Wherever 'here' is." Chloe prodded her slumbering friend as the put the truck in park. Max woke with a start, straightening up in a fight-or-flight response before waking up fully and calming down. Slightly.

Rubbing her eyes, she ordered, "Park somewhere you can't see from the road."

"Wow. This is getting more trustworthy by the second. The whole thing really screams 'I'm definitely not about to murder the crap out of someone'. Any suspicious drinks you need me to chug, by any chance?"

"Don't joke about that," Max said, brusquely and with unexpected reproach.

"Sorry?" Chloe raised her eyebrows. "Look, can you just explain what's going on?" The truck idled; she wanted her explanation before she would park.

Max had a troubled look, and she took a few moments- through which Chloe tapped on the steering wheel impatiently- to choose her words.

"… Something terrible is going to happen here unless we can stop it."

"Wow. That _almost_ told me something."

"Chloe, we're here because Rachel's in danger."

Suddenly all of the humor of the situation was lost on Chloe.

"What? How? I just talked to her this morning, what's going on? And why would you know? How would you even know _her_ ? Why didn't we go find _her_ instead of some creepy old barn?"

"This is the only place I knew for sure we'd catch them," Max replied cryptically.

"Them? Who's _them_?"

"Chloe. Park the car and I'll show you."

"No! You've been stringing me along this whole time so far and I want at least _one_ real answer."

"Okay. Ask me anything and I'll give you a full answer." She made eye contact with Chloe. Even though she'd just slept, she seemed just as tired as before, maybe moreso.

It took a veritable moment to choose the question she'd demand an answer to, but not too long.

"Is Rachel going to be okay?"

Max hesitated before saying, fully and honestly, "I don't know. But this is the best way to help her."

It hadn't been an automatic yes, which both concerned Chloe and convinced her of Max's good intent. She was being truthful, it was pretty obvious. If she'd just leapt at her with a 'yes, of course, everything's fine!' she'd have had to call bullshit. But the full truth wasn't quite comforting.

"... Okay." She put the truck back into drive and drove around to the back of the barn to park. Anyone driving up the road or entering the barn wouldn't be able to see it unless they were doing a full sweep of the area. It was the best she could do short of driving it through a mud pit and covering it in leaves.

Killing the engine and taking her keys, she stepped out and walked around the front of the truck to help Max out. She didn't seem like she was quite oriented enough to manage the step down, and it would really suck to get all the way out here just for Max to break her neck getting out of the car.

"We've got some time," she mumbled. Chloe wasn't sure whether Max was addressing her or just speaking to herself. "Let's go inside," she added, louder. "There's a missing piece of wall covered by some sheet metal on the left side. We can get in there."

The pair found the gap and headed inside. Chloe made sure to keep an eye on Max as she went- she looked like she was either seriously distracted or had a killer headache. Maybe both, by the look on her face. Even as irritated as she wanted to be, Chloe was more concerned than anything else.

Inside the barn, there weren't any big surprises. It just looked like a regular barn. It smelled a bit like rot, and it clearly hadn't been used in decades, but it didn't seem particularly nefarious.

Max, however, clearly saw past this straw-strewn ruse, making a beeline for something Chloe couldn't see. She followed quickly, walking over as Max dropped to her knees. For a moment she thought she'd tripped, until she saw her clearing away the straw. She crouched down to help, and they revealed a sizable trapdoor. Chloe tried it first, trying to pull it open with all her strength, but it was locked. She slouched as she dropped it and ran a hand through her hair as she caught her breath. "Crap. Do you have a key? Or was that not part of the mystery plan?"

A moment later, Max tried the door. She didn't produce a key, or bolt cutters, or anything else that would sensibly be necessary to force it, and yet it opened without her breaking a sweat. Chloe gawped.

"... Wanna tell me how you did that?"

"Long story," Max said. It felt like the hundredth time she'd said it, even though it couldn't be more than the third, and Chloe made a mental note to press her on it later. She peered around the opened trapdoor for just a second to look at the lock. It was completely broken.

Okay. Sure. Why not?

 

The trapdoor had revealed a downward stairway, cheerless grey concrete in contrast to the wooden building atop them. Max descended first, and Chloe noticed that she was shaking.

"Max? Are you okay?" She checked in. Max turned to nod; Chloe saw that her nose was bleeding. Pretty significantly, really; she was surprised Max hadn't wiped it away. "You're bleeding."

"Oh. Sorry." She tried to wipe it off and just smeared it. Chloe frowned.

"Hold still." With her jacket sleeve pulled over her palm she dabbed at Max's face, getting off most of the blood. "... Max, I don't know what's going on, but I can handle it if you're not in good shape." Wiping off her sleeve on her jeans, she put her other hand on Max's shoulder, trying to make eye contact. Max didn't reciprocate it but she tried to reassure Chloe.

"I'm fine," she said, resolved. "I just… want this to be over with as soon as it can be."

"Bullshit, you're not fine, you're a mess. But I'm with you on getting this done. Whatever 'this' is." Chloe gave her a reassuring squeeze before letting her go.

At the bottom of the stairs and down a hallway was a door. Massive, reinforced, it looked like it was straight out of a bunker. Maybe that was what this was? A keypad was next to it, and Max punched in the combination without more than a glance, though before the last digit she stopped for a moment to steel herself.

"... Chloe, be careful, okay?"

"Careful's my middle name."

Max smiled, weak but genuine. She finished the combination and opened the door.

 

Chloe wasn't sure what she'd expected. From the doorway it looked like it might have been a fairly standard storm shelter. On the far wall was a massive sink and a water tank, and to their right were shelves of bottles, cans, and boxes. It looked a lot like Madsen's makeshift garage bunker, actually, and the likeness didn't warm her to the place.

She started walking ahead of Max to look around but was stopped by a hand on her arm. Max had grabbed her.

"Don't split up," she said. She sounded as on-edge as she looked, which was very. Chloe acquiesced, slowing down for her and taking her by the hand without really thinking about it. Buddy system. Max seemed to appreciate it, judging by how tightly she was hanging onto Chloe.

On the left of the storage room was a translucent, plastic curtain, and Chloe held it aside for Max while she looked ahead into the next room.

She didn't quite know what to make of it when she first saw it. It was a well-lit, almost clinical looking room. She thought it was pretty big for a bunker, though she had no point of reference for the size of the average bunker.

From the curtain Chloe could see a few things. First, the wall across from her was lined with shelves, along with a filing cabinet. There was also a computer desk, and one of those fancy, expensive art tablets nearby. A printer was on the wall to her right. But what most interested her was to the left.

It seemed to be a setup for a photoshoot. A huge white tarp was rolled down from the wall onto the floor, and high-end photography lights were arranged all around it. In general, there was photography equipment all over the place. The only other real features of the room were the wall hangings, uncomfortable photographs and artwork, and a sofa and coffee table facing the left, maybe to watch the photoshoots as they happened.

Overall, the place definitely seemed weird, but not really _dangerous_. She turned to Max, and immediately felt like she just didn't find this place malignant because she didn't know enough about it. She was shaking, and Chloe could feel that her hand had gotten cold and clammy.

"Stay with me, Max." She squeezed her hand, trying to ground her. "What's up with all this? I don't think I'm getting the full picture here."

"It's called the Dark Room," she explains.

"Seems pretty bright to me," Chloe joked, trying to keep things as lighthearted as they possibly could be in such a foreboding situation.

Max didn't laugh, or even acknowledge her. Which was fair. "Mark Jefferson uses this place."

"The photography teacher?" Chloe raised her eyebrows, but quickly tried to assure Max that she believed her. She hadn't yet considered whether she _did_ , but it was pretty obvious the last thing Max needed was to be called a liar. "Seems about right. Anyone with a goatee like that is usually skeevy as shit."

"I don't know how long he's been doing it, but he… doses and kidnaps girls and photographs them. Here. He usually kills them."

Oh.

Chloe was done joking, obviously, but she didn't know where to go ahead with this. She wanted to ask just how Max knew all this, but she was pretty sure she already knew the answer, and it wasn't a pleasant one to so much as think about - reciting it would do Max no favors. God, no wonder she was so freaked out. It didn't help knowing that drugging, kidnapping, and killing young women usually had another step in there; she didn't know if Jefferson wasn't that particular kind of scumbag or if Max had just omitted it, but again, would asking really help anyone?

She knew what she did want to ask, though, as soon as she thought of it.

"So Rachel's next. That's why we're here." A sharp pang of fear broke Chloe's fortitude for a moment at the thought that Rachel was in this kind of danger. If it weren't for Max warning Chloe… It wasn't something she wanted to think about, one of those thoughts that hurt just to have, so she pushed it aside. She wouldn't let it happen.

"Except instead of Jefferson we're waiting for Nathan Prescott to show up."

"You're shitting me." This wasn't really shocking to Chloe, considering Nathan's general douchebaggery, but it seemed a step up from his regular level of awful to just perverse.

"I wish. He's like… Jefferson's protege or something. He's trying to impress him."

"By killing Rachel."

"I don't think he's planning on killing her," she frowned. "But it would happen. If we let it."

"Oh, well, that's a lot better."

"I'm not defending him, I'm just saying the facts, as far as I know them."

"Well, to me, the facts say I've got to kick the shit out of a Prescott and a perverted teacher with a snuff fetish."

Max didn't argue with that. She looked around the room, searching for something. "I know security cameras are going to be installed in here sometime, but I don't know if they have been yet."

"Should I go through his computer? I could probably figure out from there if he's got cameras going or not."

"Yeah. Good idea," Max nodded. "I'll try and make this a bit safer for when Nathan shows up. There are probably guns all over the place."

They divided and conquered, Chloe scouring the P.C. for indications of surveillance while Max checked cabinets and shelves for anything that might endanger them in the event of a skirmish. Luckily, the computer was unlocked, which made enough sense. It was in a locked bunker; a startup password was probably overkill when it was already behind a foot of steel. She didn't find any indications of security cameras, though in her trawling for hints at them she found emails to SpyGuy Surveillance asking for a quote.

"We're all clear, Max. He's looking into them, but I'm pretty sure there's nothing installed yet."

"Good," she called over to Chloe from one of the shelves along the wall. She'd found a pistol and was nervously looking for a safer, inaccessible spot to stash it.

"How about the ceiling?" Chloe suggested. "We could pop one of the panels up and leave the gun up there. Nathan couldn't reach it." She started wheeling over the desk chair she'd been sitting in, and had it nearly over to Max before she bursted out, eyes wide, "No!"

Chloe paused, startled. Max coughed, seeming somehow embarrassed. "Get the stool by the cintiq. It's, uhm. Dangerous to stand on wheelie chairs. Trust me."

"... Oookay, Safety Max has spoken." She pushed the chair back over to the desk, letting it wheel independently to clatter against the wall, and grabbed the stool. Being taller, she did the honors of stepping up onto it, pushing one of the ceiling panels up and aside. Max handed her the gun and she stashed it in the ceiling. "Anything else before I get down from here?"

"Yeah, hang on for a second." Max grabbed a box off of a shelf and started sweeping the room, picking up what looked like prescription bottles and syringes. She handed it off to Chloe, who carefully situated it on one of the intersections of the ceiling panels, before heading back to the storage room, returning with a veritable armful of more drug bottles.

"Jesus. Someone needs a hobby, and that's coming from _me_ ," Chloe commented as she stashed them one after another as Max handed them off. "That everything?"

"Everything I could find. We should still be careful, though. We don't know what Nathan has on him."

Chloe slid the panel back into place and jumped down to the floor; the sound startled Max, which made her feel vaguely guilty. "I don't care if he comes in here dual-wielding shotguns, I'll kick that creep's ass."

"If we're reckless, it's not just us who can get hurt," Max reminded her. "If he's got Rachel with him, she won't be in the shape to look after herself. We don't want to start a fight if we can avoid it."

"It's not a fight if I'm just beating the shit out of him," Chloe replied, though she saw the wisdom in Max's caution. If there were shots being fired, Rachel was in danger, which sort of defeated the whole point. Picking up the stool and carrying it back over to the cintiq's desk, she figured Max seemed calmed down and lucid enough to answer some questions.

"So… I don't want to look a gift horse in the mouth here, but what's up with you?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean you've been doing a lot of weird shit since you showed up. Like the trapdoor- I tried to open it and it was locked, but two seconds later it's busted and you pop it right open. I know it's been a while, but I don't think you're ripped enough to pull open a lock like it's butter."

"... Chloe, I think you'd believe me if I told you, but I don't think it's a good idea for you to know. It doesn't help us right now, and it might hurt you in the long run."

"See, this is exactly the kind of weird shit that makes me wonder what's up with you! All I'm asking for is a straight answer." Chloe threw her hands up in exasperation. "Max, I'm asking because if you don't tell me I've got to make my own assumptions and that starts getting iffy real fast."

"... You think I'm involved in this?" Max looked stricken.

"Max, we haven't talked in years. I don't think you're the kind of person to have anything to do with this, but I'm just saying that if you can't tell me how you know all this and how you're doing all this weird stuff, that's the only logical thing to think. Even if _I_ don't believe it, the cops aren't going to give you the benefit of the doubt."

Standing there looking rather pitiful, Max absorbed this for a few moments. She sighed.

"Chloe, I don't know how or why, but about…" She did a quick mental count then gave up. "A couple of weeks ago to me but sometime in like, October, I figured out I could time travel. I don't know why, and it's a long really shitty story, but that's the short version."

"Wow. Uhm. That's… a lot." Chloe wasn't quite sure what to make of that. It seemed startlingly plausible, actually, considering the door and the chair- had she, in some alternate timeline Max prevented, had some horrible rolling chair accident? "Fine. Do something time travel-y and I'll buy it."

"I'm not sure that's a good idea. It's not great to use it if I don't have to."

"Why? Does Doctor Who show up and kick you in the nuts?"

Max snorted with laughter. "No, it just gives me a headache. But if you want proof, I did use it to bust open the door. You were right about that." A moment later she added, more seriously, "By the way, I'm sorry I never called you or anything after moving. The bus ride over isn't even that bad."

"Yeah, that was kind of a dick move," Chloe agreed. "I guess it's water under the bridge, though? I mean, I lived. I'll kick your ass if you do it again, though," she joked.

"I wouldn't dream of it," Max promised. "I'm actually set up to attend Blackwell next semester. You haven't been expelled yet, have you?"

" _Yet_ ? Do I get kicked out of Blackwell?" Chloe raised her eyebrows. "I got suspended last month, sure, but I'm not _that_ bad. What do I do? Give me all the future secrets."

"I can't tell you, it would mess with the timeline," Max protested.

"Okay, well, if I'm about to do it, stop me. I actually kind of like school, I'm not gonna lie. It beats sitting at home all day dealing with step-douche."

"You like school?" Max feigned the deepest, most dramatic shock.

"No, okay, school is stupid and I hate it, but learning is okay."

"Oh my god, you're a geek."

"Max, if you time traveled just to come here and call me a nerd, I've got to wonder who let you get that kind of power."

"Chloe, I didn't time travel here to save Rachel, it was to nerd-shame you. It's true."

"Eat shit," Chloe laughed.

The evening was still young, and they had a couple of hours until Max expected Nathan to show up, so they whiled them away with catching up. It was a welcome interlude from the drama for both of them. Neither knew many details about the last few years of the other's life. Family, friends, music tastes… Anything they could think of to discuss, they did, getting along just as swimmingly as they had so many years ago.

 

Eventually, as the time ticked by, quicker than either would have liked, they were brought back down to Earth. They needed to prepare for the task they'd come to do.

"One of us could wait outside," Chloe suggested. "Come in after him, so he can't just run off."

"No," Max shook her head. "I don't want us to split up for any part of this."

"Come on. If anything goes wrong, can't you just go back and try again?"

"It's not that simple. We really need to do this right the first time, if we can."

"You'd know better than me, I guess," Chloe ceded, though she didn't sound wholly convinced. "We can just hide in here, then, be waiting for him. Should we get one of the guns down, to be safe? I know how to shoot."

"Chloe, the last not one but _two_ times I saw you holding a gun you got shot. We're not bringing weapons into this if we have any choice."

"That was your weird, fucked up, delinquent Chloe. I'm way cooler and hotter and more competent," she argued, posing heroically.

"I'm serious, no guns."

"What if he brings one?"

"Then we deal with it. Chloe, if you make one bad shot Rachel's toast," Max reminded her. That was enough to settle it.

"Fine, no guns. Except _these_ guns." She flexed, which was really sort of unimpressive. If she did have any muscle it wasn't visible through her jacket.

Max grinned nonetheless. "Wow. I feel safer already. We should figure out where we're going to hide. You're sure you can't hide the truck any better?"

"Short of burying it? Yes."

"... Maybe we should hide outside, actually," Max thought aloud. "There aren't many places in here, and we can follow him in. The only problem is he'd hear us opening the door and have a few seconds notice."

"He'll see us leaping dramatically from cover no matter where we are. It's your call," Chloe shrugged before remembering a rather important detail. "Max, hold up, the trapdoor's lock. Won't he notice it's broken?"

"Shit. You're totally right," Max frowned. "I should have done that better. There's nothing we can do to fix it now. Hopefully he'll just… figure it busted itself. Or Jefferson broke it last time he was here."

"I guess we've got to just count on Nathan being too fucked up to care," Chloe nodded. "I mean, he probably will be. Is he ever _not_ drugged out of his mind?"

Max couldn't help but pity him, commenting, "He's got a lot of problems. Not all of them are his fault."

"Christ, Max, I don't care about his life story, he's killing people." Chloe shot back, not caring much for Nathan or his daddy issues.

Max shrugged noncommittally. As she did, Chloe took a moment to notice how much better she looked than their initial rendez-vous, or when they'd entered the Dark Room. Her nose hadn't bled again after the trapdoor- was it a side effect of time travel? Chloe had so many questions she hadn't remembered to ask even after hours of solid conversation.

After thorough consideration, they decided to ambush Nathan from behind, hiding outside behind the barn. Carefully, they tried to cover or get rid of any traces of their presence, replacing furniture and picking up any messes they'd left. Chloe had popped open one of the water bottles from the storage room, which had annoyed Max, and now she had to carry the empty bottle out just to make sure there wasn't a mysterious pile of trash left behind them.

With massive, safe-like door closed behind them and the trapdoor carefully replaced, Max and Chloe settled behind the barn and waited in silence.

 

They'd jumped the gun by a decent measure. It was a long, dragging hour outside in the dark before they heard the telltale sound of a car engine coming down the dusty path to the front of the barn. The very air felt tense enough to snap; Chloe could hardly stand hiding, unable to see, but the moment she moved to peer around the side of the barn Max grabbed her arm and shook her head pointedly. Had she just jumped back from a timeline where Chloe had peeked, and they'd been caught? Or was this just a judgement call?

Around the front of the barn, the distinctive noise of a car door opening was heard, then footsteps, then chains. Chloe raised an eyebrow in question, and Max whispered to her, "The barn doors are chained. He's opening them."

A creaking noise indicated success after a few long seconds, and he moved the car into the barn. Its headlights shining through cracks in the walls onto Max and Chloe, startling them. They crouched as low to the ground as they could, even though none of the cracks were big enough to see through without specifically trying to. The car's engine turned off, and took with it the headlights, but they didn't relax. This was a crucial moment. If he saw that the trapdoor had been broken into, the game was up.

A small thumping noise was heard, followed by Nathan swearing loudly. At least they knew it was him and not Jefferson.

The trapdoor opened moments later, slamming onto the ground loudly, and Max and Chloe made purposeful eye contact. As soon as they heard the bunker's door open, muffled but audible, they made their move, jumping to their feet as quietly as possible and sneaking back into the barn through the side. They tiptoed down the stairs, careful not to trip or make any noise to alert Nathan earlier than necessary. When they reached the bottom, they could see down the hallway that he'd left the door wide open, a lucky break for them.

Max whispered to Chloe, "He's got a gun in his jacket."

"Learned that the hard way?"

"Harder for you than me."

 

They crept through the door and into the storage room, only the curtain separating them from the Dark Room proper. From the other room they could hear footsteps, irregular and heavy, and a steady stream of mumbling speech they couldn't parse. Nathan sounded far from lucid, but clouded judgement might make him more dangerous. A sober Nathan might see that he was outnumbered and back down. Plastered Nathan probably wouldn't.

Chloe glanced to the curtain, pointing at herself then to it. Max shook her head and gestured to both herself and Chloe, then to the curtain. She really was insistent on sticking together.

Nodding, Chloe held up three fingers, counting down slowly and steadily to one before the pair barged blindly through the curtain.

It was more substantial than she'd expected, and she nearly tripped on her way through, but Max steadied her. Once through Chloe paused, taking in the situation and figuring out her next move, while Max just rushed past her.

In those initial moments Chloe saw Rachel before anything else, limp and unmoving on the couch around the middle of the room. Next she saw Nathan, looking off-balance as he turned from one of the shelves lining the walls to look at the intruders. Third, she saw Max, making a beeline for Rachel.

"Duck!" When Max yelled out, Chloe didn't hesitate, crouching a heartbeat before a bullet whizzed overhead. She jumped back to her feet as soon as it passed and got moving, heading straight for Nathan, who looked like he had no idea what was going on. Apparently he was the 'shoot first, ask questions later' kind of guy.

Nathan turned his attention to Max, who was closer to him with her head start. She'd stopped at the couch, trying to pick up Rachel and get her out of the crossfire, and he started aiming- if what his shaky hands were doing could be called aiming- for Max. Chloe was too far away to stop him directly, but for lack of a better idea, she chucked the crumpled remnants of her water bottle at him. She was genuinely surprised when it hit its mark, bumping harmlessly into his face but startling him enough to bring his attention back to her.

She tried to hold his focus, shouting, "Put down the gun!" She was not surprised when he did not put down the gun. Instead, he fired at her, missing by several feet to her right. She didn't even stop to avoid it.

Nathan had been backing up as he fired, placing the couch pretty directly between her and Nathan. Max had just lifted Rachel off of it, so Chloe vaulted it in a single motion, landing on the coffee table and bounding right over and off of it. Nathan was still moving away but had very little left of the room to flee to, bumping into one of the photography lights and knocking it over with a crash.

The noise startled him and he turned his head to see what had caused it, a mistake that lost him the fight. Chloe barreled into him, knocking him to the floor and sending the gun clattering to the ground about a yard away. He wrestled with her, trying to shove her off of him, but he was uncoordinated and not too strong to begin with, so it only took her a few seconds to control both of his hands with one of hers.

She considered whether to just start wailing on him, to make sure he wouldn't be any trouble and to make herself feel better about this whole mess. Looking down at him, she got a good look at his face, and it reminded her vaguely of a trapped animal: confused, pissed, and ready to kill anything within arms length.

"How the fuck did you get in here?" He met her glare with his own, not sounding quite as defeated as the average person might once pinned down and disarmed.

"You left the door open," Chloe replied flippantly. She called to Max, not taking her eyes off of Nathan, "How's Rachel?"

"She's asleep, but she's breathing, and she doesn't look hurt," she heard Max reply, before adding, "Are there any scissors in here?"

"Scissors? Why do you need scissors?" She frowned.

"Her hands are duct taped. Her ankles, too, I think."

"I've got a pocket knife, you can use that." Chloe produced it from a jacket pocket with her free hand. Max walked over to retrieve it, having put Rachel back down on the couch, but before Chloe handed it off she directed, "Hand me his gun."

"What? Chloe, I told you, don't-"

"Trust me." She glanced up from Nathan to give Max a pointed look. She had no intent of firing if she could prevent it, but she didn't want to be completely unarmed. Just holding the gun would be a good deterrent and make sure Nathan didn't start more trouble than he already had.

She wasn't sure if Max understood, or simply conceded, but she carefully handed off the gun to Chloe in exchange for the knife.

"Who the fuck is she?" Nathan glared daggers at Max, craning his neck to get a better look at her while she walked back to the unconscious Rachel.

"Not your business." Chloe aimed the gun down at him. "Stop moving or I might slip."

"You're full of shit," he said, and she almost took the bait and argued, but realized that despite his big talk he wasn't moving a muscle. Better to let beaten Prescotts lie.

She decided to press her advantage, since he'd been thoroughly trounced and knew it. "What did you do to her?"

"What, Rachel? I didn't do shit. She got wasted at a Vortex party, I offered her a ride. No harm done," he smiled, voice full of derision.

Pinning him down as she was, Chloe was hit with a sudden, beautiful awareness that she was in a very good spot to knee him right in the balls, so she did that. He crumpled and shouted out, "Fuck!", which degenerated into a very steady, very unhappy slurry of verbal abuse against Chloe. She ignored it, though Max turned around, startled. She seemed like she was about to suggest something distinctly un-fun like 'don't kick Nathan Prescott in the dick', so Chloe cut her off.

"He'll be fine, I promise. If he's not I've done the world a favor."

"Fuck you!" He interrupted Chloe and started fighting her grip again. "I wasn't going to fucking rape her or some shit, I was taking photos! She'd be back home by morning, wouldn't have even fuckin' known, until you two show up and make it a goddamn problem!"

She reminded him of the gun by shoving it nice and close to his face. "Hold still and shut the fuck up so we can decide what we're doing with you."

"We need to get out of here," Max added. "If Jefferson shows up this will get bad, and I don't know if he's going to or not."

"We could ask Nathan," Chloe suggested. "Is Jefferson coming?"

"Fuck you," he replied helpfully.

"Let's just go," Max insisted, not unreasonably.

Conceding, Chloe clambered off of Nathan, still holding him firmly and yanking him upwards. "You heard her, then. Stand up. Don't try anything." She kept the gun trained on him as he got his footing, though he swayed where he stood. The snap of plastic underfoot made her realize she'd pinned him down on top of the wrecked light's remains, and a little blood was on the ground, but she wasn't quite moved to tears. If he had glass shards stuck in his ass, he deserved it.

"I don't think I can carry Rachel all the way to the truck," Max confessed. "I can handle Nathan if you get her."

"Sure." Chloe passed the gun off to Max, and instantly regretted it. She seemed to know how to hold it, sure, but she kept it aimed at the floor. It might be proper gun safety, but the bigger danger here was the wasted psycho kidnapper guy, not a misfire. Still, Chloe was willing to take the risk in exchange for the opportunity to check on Rachel. She heard Nathan talking to Max behind her as she walked back to the couch.

"You look like shit," he commented. When she didn't respond he continued. "What the hell's your name, anyways?"

"Max." She engaged, which Chloe didn't think was a great idea.

"Christ, another dyke. Should have guessed it, though, if you know her." He glanced at Chloe.

"What does that have to do with my name?" she replied, floundering a little. She wasn't handling him nearly as well as Chloe would have liked her to, and she turned back to them.

"Don't even answer him, Max. He's trying to distract you."

"Sorry," she turned her head to reply to Chloe, who started to bark at her to keep her eyes on Nathan, but it was already too late to make up for her lapse in judgement. He threw a punch at her face, landing it at the base of her jaw. She yelped, jumping back without thinking, and he made his bid for freedom, sprinting for the curtain and the exit.

Chloe's gut instinct was to give chase, but she was more worried about protecting Rachel and Max than catching Nathan. It was by a small margin, but it was enough to keep her from running after him.

Despite the clear shot and uncluttered floor, Nathan suddenly tripped, plummeting face-first to the ground and landing with an unpleasant _crunch_. Suddenly, Chloe saw what had stopped him in his tracks. Rachel had lunged across the couch to grab his leg, now sprawled with her hand on his ankle. Too surprised to capitalize on Nathan's fall, Chloe gawped. Hadn't she been unconscious a second ago? "Rachel?"

Nathan kicked her off, striking Rachel's hand twice before she let go of his leg. He scrambled back to his feet and shot off again through the curtain, leaving a small spot of blood on the concrete floor where his face had impacted it.

"Jesus, Chloe, grab him!" Rachel's voice snapped Chloe out of her standstill, and she ran through the curtain in hot pursuit. He was already through the door and making for the stairs, and she tried to keep up, regretting her choice of footwear. Sneakers might have helped a touch more than combat boots- thank god this pair was already broken in.

He stumbled on the top few stairs, as she was just reaching the bottom, and he scrambled on all fours for a few seconds to reach level ground. Exhibiting surprising forethought, he stopped and closed the trapdoor above her before making a run for his truck. She pushed it open without too much trouble, but it was a delay, and he was opening the door of his car by the time she stepped out into the barn.

Nathan leapt into the vehicle while she ran to try and stop him. He started the engine and slammed into reverse, not even closing his door before he gunned it backwards out of the barn. She'd lost the race. Frustrated, she could do nothing more than flip him off two-handed as he drove away. Just in case he didn't already know she was pissed.

 

Defeated, she re-entered the bunker. When she passed back through the curtain she saw Max still standing helplessly near the far end of the room. Rachel was seated on the couch, her head in her hands and hair a curtain around her face.

"No dice?" She didn't look up when she called out to Chloe.

"He drove off. I'd have gone after him in the truck, but you guys would have been stuck here." She walked over to the couch, leaning down to around Rachel's eye level. "Are you okay?"

"My head hurts, but I'm good." She disentangled one hand from her hair to give Chloe a thumbs up.

"You don't look good," Chloe frowned. "How long were you awake for, anyway?"

"I woke up on the way in. He whacked my head on the door. I figured I'd pretend I was asleep until I knew what was going on."

"That's not a great plan. What if he'd-" She was interrupted by Rachel's hand feeling blindly for her, eventually patting her gently on the face.

"Chloe. I am aware."

Indignantly, she grabbed Rachel's hand and removed it from her face. "Clearly you aren't, since you're not freaking the hell out."

"I appreciate that you're worried, I swear, but let me be hungover or drunk or whatever for like, five more minutes before I have to actually think." Rachel's hand closed over her own.

"... Fine," Chloe sighed. "We'll talk later. Do you want a drink of water or something?"

"I love you," Rachel replied, grinning somewhere beneath the curtain of hair concealing her face. "Water would be great. Don't forget about Max, though."

Oh, shit, Max. Chloe looked up and saw she was still awkwardly nursing her jaw, wandering uncomfortably through the room. She looked slightly teary, and her face was bruising, though nothing looked broken.

"Hey, you okay?" She walked over to Max while she spoke. "Sorry I didn't catch Nathan. We should probably get out of here before he comes back. How bad did he get you?"

"It's fine," she replied. "It hurts but he didn't break it. He's pretty weak."

Chloe snorted. "Weak as hell. We'll get you some ice for it, at least," she promised. "Where are we going? I'd say my house, but step-fucker is home."

Rachel offered, "My dorm room could work. No one will care about curfew, with the party going on."

"Sounds like a plan." Chloe glanced to Max for her approval. She nodded, and Chloe announced, "I'll go start the truck."

"No splitting up," Max reminded Chloe before turning to call, "Rachel, can you walk?"

"I'm fine." She stood up from the couch to prove her vigor and hissed in pain through her teeth, clutching her head in her hands. Chloe rushed over to her.

"You sure you're okay?" She massaged Rachel's shoulder gingerly.

"I'm fine," she affirmed, smiling winningly at Chloe to reassure her, to limited success.

They left the bunker together, squeezing into the two-seater truck. The drive to Blackwell was fairly uneventful, aside from Rachel puking out the window (from the middle seat, no less). The drive took about an hour, and by the time they parked at the school all three were exhausted. Chloe was dangerously close to nodding off, blasting music to stay awake that she only turned off once they were in the parking lot.

"Hey, Max, you're getting the sneak preview of the place," Chloe grinned. "You know she's gonna go here next year?" She added the latter question for Rachel's benefit.

"Sweet," she replied. "Honestly, my second year's gonna suck, starting on all the real shit. I might see if I can graduate early and save a semester of tuition."

"What? No way, you can't leave me here alone!" Chloe's face twisted with mock horror.

"You won't be alone. I'll be with you… in your heart."

"Right next to my tit, just like always," Chloe joked.

Rachel laughed, warm and friendly, and Max felt the slightest twinge of fondness when she heard her. She was glad she'd saved Rachel not just for Chloe's sake, she found.

The trio talked back and forth as they walked to the dorms. No faculty bothered them on their way, unsurprisingly. Scattered all over the grounds were telltale signs of the Vortex party that had ended not much earlier, and curfew was the least of anyone's concerns on a night like this.

 

Chloe knew the way to Rachel's room better than the way to her classes, and the pair led Max along without issue. Rachel opened her door and held it open for the other two while Max asked, "Chloe, don't you have a dorm room?"

"Nah, I got exempt from living on campus _for financial reasons_ ," she explained. "Mom and step-fucker didn't want to pay for room and board."

"Which basically means Chloe and I are sharing mine," Rachel added. "Max, you can take the couch. Chloe, can you find her the spare blanket while I grab her some ice?" She crouched by a miniature freezer near the door while Chloe started searching for the blanket.

Looking around the room, it was comforting and familiar after the insane night they'd all just had. It was immaculately tidy, with posters and baubles decorating it wherever suitable but not cluttering it. It was clean enough to be comfortable but not so clean it didn't feel like a real person lived in it. The atmosphere was, in a word, homey.

She spotted the spare blanket folded neatly beneath Rachel's desk and took it, tossing it to Max. "Got it."

Max startled when the blanket impacted her with a gentle _poff_ , but she caught it, saying, "Wait, shouldn't we talk about what happened before we go to sleep? Maybe even call the cops. That was serious stuff."

"No cops," Rachel said immediately as she handed off a plastic baggie of ice to Max, who was running out of hands. "I don't know what the hell was going on over there, but unless someone's _literally_ at risk of dying, I don't want the police involved."

"Someone was, and that person's you, Rachel," Max argued.

" _Was_. I'm not dead now, so I think I'm gonna nix the police idea."

Max turned to Chloe for backup, hoping she would also understand the urgency of the situation, but she overestimated her loyalty.

"... I think maybe Rachel's right," she said. "I mean, getting the cops involved immediately might not be a great idea. It can at least wait until tomorrow."

Rachel nodded. "That's a good idea. Let's get a good night's sleep, then tomorrow we can talk this out, and if we think the cops need to get involved we'll do it then."

She didn't seem particularly pleased with this, or with how Chloe had sided against her, but Max shrugged and ceded. "... Fine. But tomorrow we really need to." She sat on the couch and started getting as comfortable as she could.

After taking a moment with her mirror to take off her makeup, Rachel started settling in for sleep as well, Chloe following her. They shared the bed, laying back to back and trying to catch what was left of the night's sleep. As she drifted off, Chloe pondered briefly whether she might wake up and find that the entire, strange day had been a dream all its own.

She did have a nightmare. The only part she would remember when she woke would be the vague image of a lighthouse in a storm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 11/28/16 update
> 
> made some edits to chapter 1. grammar and sentence structure, no plot-significant edits. <3
> 
> 4/5/17 update
> 
> minor stylistic edits, no textual edits


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alright, here we are! sorry it took so long, haha.  
> warnings in this chapter for brief homophobia and ableism

Ever since receiving her powers, Max had hardly gone a night without nightmares plaguing her, but the night she spent in Rachel's room was a welcome respite. She'd been untroubled by any dreams at all, her mind completely empty for the few hours of sleep there was time to get, and when she woke she had hardly realized she had fallen asleep at all. The only evidence of time's passage was the mid-morning sunlight filtering through the blinds, casting the room in a warm glow.

She was tired, obviously, but it had been the first night in weeks that she hadn't dreamed of the destruction of Arcadia Bay, and it made her hopeful. Maybe saving Rachel _had_ diverted the timeline and avoided the storm. Maybe this was it. She wasn't willing to believe it yet- she'd assumed before that things were over and paid dearly for it- but it was a comforting idea that met her as she woke.

Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, she sat up on the couch. The blanket she'd been given was on the floor beside it, along with a bag of water that had once been ice. Apparently she hadn't been quite as restful as her dreamless sleep had led her to believe. She checked on her jaw, pressing gently where she'd been hit. It hurt, tender to the touch, but besides a spike of pain she felt no major damage.

Across the room was a full-length mirror, and Max stood up and walked over it to get a better look at her jaw. It was bruised, an unhappy red color, but not significantly swollen. It would probably take a few days to heal, but it would fade soon enough.

Since she was already at the mirror, she took a moment to look herself over. She was disheveled, certainly: her hair was unbrushed and a little tangled, and she noticed the slightest whiffs of B.O. lingering about her after spending all day and night in the same set of clothes. Overall, she was a little bit of a mess, and looked tired more than anything else despite having woken up a couple of minutes ago.

She'd change as soon as she got home, she thought, but it occurred to her a moment later that she really didn't want to go straight back home. It seemed a delicate time to leave Arcadia Bay and Chloe's fate in the balance. Doubly so, since they hadn't alerted the police about the Dark Room.

Why hadn't they? She knew the answer on a basic level, obviously. Because Rachel didn't want to. But why didn't she? Did she just not realise the magnitude of the danger she'd been in, and how close she'd come to being killed? Or was it some kind of ideological rule she kept to never call the cops?

_Just ask her, dummy,_ Max chided herself, turning to the bed across the room, but her questions would have to wait. Chloe was still asleep, snoring quietly, but Rachel was nowhere to be seen.

Max's first reaction was panic. Had something happened during the night? Would she need to rewind and save her from some other unknown danger? It took some effort to calm herself before she could get fully worked up. The most likely thing was that she'd woken up before Max and gone to take a shower or get breakfast. Maybe she'd left some kind of note in case one of the two woke up and found her gone.

Searching for this hypothetical note, Max looked around the room. Last night she'd been too tired to really take it in, but now she developed a proper appreciation for the tidy, welcoming dorm room. She was pretty proud of the personal spin she had put on her own- would put, in this timeline- but Rachel clearly had this down to a science. Everything had a place. No stray papers, books, or trash were present. The only mess visible was the blanket on the floor and the bedcovers, which were only in disarray because of the person still tangled in them. Suddenly self-conscious, Max returned to the couch and folded the blanket while she continued looking around, placing it gingerly on the sofa.

The walls of the room were nearly covered in posters, postcards, and even a few vinyls. Most of the posters were for concerts and tours, the bands featured ranging from mainstream pop to grunge rock and just about anything in between. It seemed Rachel's music tastes were varied, to say the least.

Perhaps more notable, though, were the postcards. At least a dozen were scattered through the posters, and all of them depicted a sunny, idealistic vision of California. Palm trees lining streets, waves crashing on a beach full of decadent tourists, the Hollywood sign in all its oversized splendor. They stood out from the music merchandise, with a strangely intimate feeling to them. Last night, all Max had known about Rachel was from mournful descriptions of a girl who seemed more like a myth or even a martyr. Now, sitting here in her dorm room, it was clear Rachel was a lot more human and homesick than Max had ever guessed.

Aside from the walls, more souvenirs and trinkets were scattered about the room, just enough to give it character but not clutter. A tall, narrow bookshelf held an assortment of textbooks and knick-knacks, catching Max's eye, and she meandered over to it. A ceramic figurine of a grey and blue bird stood out to her, vaguely familiar, and she picked it carefully up off the shelf to examine it more closely.

As she turned it over in her hands, she was suddenly startled by the sound of the door opening, and she jolted where she stood. Her grip failed and the bird plummeted to the ground, and Max braced for it to shatter, but it struck the carpeted floor and bounced a couple of inches. Her first thought was to rewind and replace it before she could be surprised, but she decided not to waste her power on something so inconsequential. She'd already tempted fate with all the rewinding she'd done last night. This wasn't important enough to add to that mess.

She turned from the shelf and saw that the person who had caught her off guard was Rachel, in a new change of clothes and her hair slightly damp. She'd just been at the showers, then. Confusion, even irritation ghosted across her face for a moment before it was replaced with a more amused look of curiosity. "Everything okay over there?"

"Yeah," Max replied a little too quickly, crouching to pick up the bird and put it back up. "I was just looking at the bluebird. Sorry, I didn't mean to snoop or anything."

"Don't worry," Rachel reassured her, putting her toiletry bag on a shelf in her closet while she talked. "It didn't break, did it?"

"No," Max confirmed, looking it over carefully before putting it back where she'd taken it from.

"Then don't sweat it. It's not a bluebird, though, just by the way. It's a scrub-jay."

"Easily confused for a n00b-jay," Max joked offhandedly. Rachel apparently found it much funnier than Max did, laughing for a moment before stopping herself short.

"Sorry, I forgot Chloe was still asleep. Why are you up so early, anyways?"

"I think it was just the sun," she said, shrugging. "What about you?"

"I'm just kind of an early bird," Rachel replied, smiling. "How's your face? Where it got punched, I mean. The rest seems fine."

"Uhm. It's fine, just a little bruised," Max answered her question, not sure how to respond to the rest.

"Yeah, I thought so. Nathan talks big but I'm pretty sure a middle schooler could kick his ass." Rachel's tone was joking and casual- she was talking while she did her makeup in the mirror- but Max decided it was as good a time as any to take the conversation in a more serious direction.

"We really need to tell the police about what happened yesterday," Max said. Rachel's shoulders seemed to sag slightly as soon as she did, but this wasn't the kind of thing that could be ignored until it resolved itself.

It was a few seconds before Rachel replied, measured and thoughtful. "... We should talk about this outside. Let me put my face on, then we can go and really get into it." She added, after a moment, "I get that this is time-sensitive, I just have a lot of questions I want answers for before we do anything serious."

Despite the urgency, Max understood that Rachel wanted more information before they brought this to the police. The Dark Room was beyond the scope of a single night's comprehension, and Rachel had only seen a few minutes of the bunker. She probably didn't even know what fate had awaited her, had Max and Chloe not been there to stop it.

"Okay," she ceded. "Should I wake Chloe up?"

"Nah, let her sleep. When she wakes up she's just going to have to go home and get yelled at anyways."

Silence settled over the room while Rachel finished putting herself together for the day, only taking a few minutes. Max waited on the couch, glancing awkwardly around the room trying not to stare. She let her gaze settle on Chloe instead, who was facing toward the wall and away from Max, her chest rising and falling in time with soft snores.

Really, Max would have liked to have Chloe there when trying to convince Rachel to agree on a plan of action, if for no other reason than to prove to herself that Chloe didn't favor Rachel over her. It was petty and she knew it, but it had stung when Chloe had sided against her last night. She had tried to remind herself, _this isn't your Chloe, she hasn't been through everything you have_ , but it did little to ease the sting of feeling less important to someone she cared so much for.

"Okay, I'm all set," Rachel announced, turning to Max and, as a joke, striking a brief glamour pose. "I was going for a look that really says _almost died, still look great_." She turned to her desk and pulled out a drawer, producing a pad of sticky notes and a pen. Max also saw that she took out a pair of small objects, but she slipped them into her pocket before it was possible to discern what they were.

" _Outside with Max_ ," Rachel dictated as she wrote. She promptly stuck it to Chloe's cheek eliciting hardly a stir. "So she won't freak out if she wakes up. She'll probably be out cold until noon, though," she said good-humoredly.

The pair left the dorm room, entering the hallway, and found it completely empty. It was a Sunday, and a Sunday after a Vortex party at that, so the campus would be a ghost town all morning, the only signs of life the red solo cups that had somehow been scattered just about anywhere.

It was only a short walk down the stairwell to the ground floor, and then out to the courtyard in front of the building. Rachel waved Max over to a bench as out of the way as any and they sat down about arm's length apart. From her pocket Rachel took the two items from her desk and Max saw that they were a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. She opened the box and extended it to Max, who politely declined.

"I don't smoke," she said, adding, "I don't mind if you do, though."

Rachel nodded, withdrawing it and taking herself one. "It's gross, don't start," she advised before lighting her cigarette and taking a drag.

Max took the opportunity to rehash her argument. "I think we need to get the cops involved, and as soon as possible. The longer it takes to put them behind bars, the longer we're in danger."

Rachel nodded pensively as Max spoke, replying with a serious, wise inflection that Max hadn't heard her use before. "Before we do anything, I want to be filled in on everything. I feel like I haven't got the full picture, and I think that's because I don't. But you do." She made direct eye contact with Max, and she felt almost trapped in it. "You seem like you know what's going on, inside and out." There was a question unspoken but imperative in Rachel's words, and Max tried to answer it.

"It's.. a long story. But I can tell you anything you want to know about it." That wasn't entirely true; Max didn't think she had any intention of telling Rachel about her powers. She wasn't sure why, but it seemed like a distinctly bad idea. Chloe believed her, but she doubted Rachel would. They were basically strangers, and Rachel seemed like a very realistic, pragmatic person. Time travel would hardly be the first explanation she'd accept.

"I want you to tell me everything. And I don't just mean what happened yesterday, I mean why that bunker's there, who all is involved and why, what would have happened if Nathan hadn't been scared off. Anything you can think of that's relevant."

It was a tall order. Max steeled herself, replying, "I'll do my best."

And she did. She started with the origins of the Dark Room, Jefferson's photographic vision-meets-fetish and his use of Nathan (and his family's money) to create the bunker he was currently using. She told Rachel about the dozens of girls before her who had been kidnapped and likely killed, and about how Nathan had targeted her in an attempt to impress his 'mentor'. The one thing she avoided talking about was how she'd learned all this. She had no lie ready and hoped that maybe Rachel would either miss that she was withholding that information or not ask out of politeness.

She was apparently getting a lucky break, because not only did Rachel not press her on how she knew all of this, she didn't ask any questions at all. She just sat, smoked, and listened. It was strange to Max that Rachel really wasn't responding to any of it- she didn't look scared or angry or anything Max had thought she'd be. It was an inhuman level of composure and it couldn't be legitimate; there was no person alive who could really stay so calm and collected in this kind of situation. Still, Rachel's mythic status made a little more sense now. Even being able to _fake_ that kind of courage was impressive, at least to Max.

The last thing she went over in her exposition was what had happened last night, giving Rachel a play-by-play of the evening's events, from her arrival at Chloe's to their departure from the Dark Room. When she finished, Rachel took about a minute to think silently before she told Max, "Thanks for telling me everything." She sounded as grateful as she did serious.

Despite feeling slightly guilty- she hadn't told her _everything_ , strictly speaking- Max accepted her thanks. "It's not a problem. Do you get why I think this is a big deal, now?"

"I got why it was a big deal before, too," Rachel replied. "I just wanted to know what was going on before we made it a bigger deal. Bringing the cops into this won't just make it neat and tidy and over with. Especially if the Prescotts are involved."

"Rachel, believe me, I know how crazy stuff gets if the Prescott family is part of it. But this is even bigger than them. Who knows how many people have died?"

"Who _does_ know? Have you tried to like… Google it? Figure out if all of these girls died, or if it's a catch-and-release thing? I'm not saying it's okay," she added quickly before Max could speak, which she was clearly about to. "I'm just saying if we call up the cops shouting 'murder' we should know that that's what's going on. Nothing I saw up there looked that incriminating, and he'll know that. The Prescotts' lawyers will know that."

"We can figure it out, then, but we need to do it fast," Max pressed her.

"I agree," Rachel said diplomatically. "How does this sound- we'll spend today trying to figure out the best way to do this, getting information, and then at like, six tonight, we call the cops and tell them everything we know."

Six. It was just shy of twelve hours, really, and Max wasn't sure she liked that, but she was glad Rachel was agreeing to even that. "Okay. But on one condition- all three of us need to stick together. If we split up we're at a lot more risk."

She saw Rachel open her mouth to reply, but before she could get a word out they were interrupted by the dormitory's front doors opening. Both of their heads snapped around to see who it was in almost impressive unison, but they relaxed quickly. It was Chloe, and judging by her appearance she'd started heading down to find them as soon as she'd woken up- her bedhead and unchanged clothes made it fairly clear she hadn't wasted any time on freshening up. She waved to them, power-walking over and sitting between them. It was a bit of a squeeze, but it was a fairly cold morning and neither Rachel nor Max could complain about the extra body heat.

"You two out here having fun without me?" She wrapped her arms around both of them, fishing for extra warmth.

"Just finished, actually," Rachel told Chloe, leaning into her. "We were talking about what to do about yesterday."

Chloe's face fell slightly, no longer quite so playful. "Shit. Any ideas?"

"We're going to call the cops at six after we figure out a bit more about Mr. Jefferson and the Dark Room," she summarised.

"Also, we need to-" Max started to add the condition of staying together for safety, but was cut off by her cell phone ringing. She pulled out of her pocket and felt her heart fall. It was her mom. She remembered in a flash that she'd completely forgotten to tell her parents before she left for Arcadia Bay, and guilt spiked through her. They'd probably been worried sick.

"I need to take this," Max announced before she picked up.

"Hello? Mom?"

"Maxine! Where are you? Are you okay? Your father and I have been trying to find you all night, we've been calling everyone, what happened?" Max nearly flinched at the onslaught of motherly concern. She appreciated it, but it was overwhelming and she hadn't braced for it, much less prepared any sort of reasonable explanation for her disappearance.

"I'm okay, I'm in Arcadia Bay. I'm sorry I forgot to tell you before I left, it was… urgent personal stuff."

"What do you mean? Is everything okay?"

"Everything's fine. It's sort of a long story but I'm with Chloe right now- you remember her, right?"

"Of course I do. Did something happen to her or Joyce?"

While she talked on the phone, she couldn't really focus on listening to what was going on around her, but she saw Rachel standing from the bench and talking to Chloe.

"Mom, it's really a longer story than I can tell you over the phone. Nobody's, like, dying or in the hospital or anything. Can I fill you in when I get home?"

"That's fine, I just needed to make sure you're okay. Do you have a way back over here? When are you coming back?"

"I'm not sure right now." Max tried to end the conversation as quickly as she could; Rachel had just started to turn and walk away towards the parking lot. Hadn't she _just_ heard Max say no splitting up? "I'll try and be back soon, though. Tell Dad I'm okay and everything I told you," she said, about to hang up.

Her mom stopped her short. "Wait, I think he'd like to talk to you himself. I know you're probably busy but he's been just as worried and it would make him feel a lot better to hear you for himself." Rachel was walking briskly away and it was clear Max would either need to let her go or ditch the phone call. She didn't want to do both- if her mom overheard any kind of suspicious or strange conversation through the phone, it would be a whole new bag of worms. Hanging up abruptly would bring on the same issue.

She sighed, slumping against Chloe and watching Rachel go. "Yeah. Put Dad on."

 

* * *

 

Last night had been a real financial success, and Frank Bowers was pleased with the spike in income the party had been for him. It would be strange if one of the parties at Blackwell _didn't_ see the students coming to him in droves, but it had been a particularly good night for him, and he'd been hoping to celebrate by sleeping in the morning after, his R.V. parked unassumingly by the beach. Lurking off-campus waiting to meet customers was tiring work, clearly, and a day to kick back and rest would be nice.

Unfortunately, it was not to be. It was around ten in the morning- painfully early for him- when he was rudely awoken by knocks on the door of his R.V. and Pompidou's response. The cacophony of barking and growling was obnoxious enough to move him from his bed to check the door. He cracked it open, a 'fuck off' ready to roll off his tongue, but he stopped it just in time. Rachel was the early morning caller. Pompidou calmed immediately, tail wagging, and Frank's irritation dwindled slightly.

"You've got a key," he commented, opening the door for her. "You don't need to knock."

"Just being polite," she said, stepping up and inside. "Sorry I woke you up."

"I was about to get up anyway," he lied. "So, who you hiding from?" It was a joke when he said it- she had a habit of coming to the R.V. whenever she was avoiding people, either in general or specific- but he was surprised to see that for a split second she looked shocked and caught off guard. He noted it but waited to press it further, letting her feel as in control as she wanted to.

"What, do I have to have an _ulterior motive_ to come see you?" She hugged him, draping herself over his shoulder and kissing him quick on the cheek. He became acutely aware that she definitely smelled a lot better than he did.

"Now I know you want something," he joked, tousling her hair. She let go of him and smoothed it back down, feigning offense as she combed her fingers through it.

"Well, now I _am_ just going to use you. Do you have, like, a comb?"

"I've got a grooming glove for Pompidou. That'll work, right?"

She snorted, trying not to laugh, and walked to the back of the R.V. He called back to her, "Comb should be somewhere around the bed." and she gave him a thumbs up.

She seemed to be in high spirits, and he wanted to believe she was just in a good mood. She'd probably had a good time at the Blackwell party and wanted to touch base with him. But he didn't think that was the case. Even when she'd showed up in a good mood over the last couple of weeks, she hadn't been this physical- not since their last fight- or this cagey. Normally if she showed up out of the blue she was glad to tell him what was happening. She'd spill out whatever she was angry or upset about, sometimes seeking his advice, sometimes only for the sake of it.

But today she'd played it off and tried to distract him with skin-deep affection. He'd seen her interact with people she was trying to control or misdirect, and this was exactly how she did it. The only thing he didn't know was why she'd feel the need to do it to _him_ . A spike of suspicion and anger peaked, but he quashed it as quickly as he could. If she was hiding something, it wasn't a good time to scare her by getting mad. Not that any time _was_ , obviously, but this was a specifically bad one.

"If you're hanging out here, I'm going to shower," he called to her.

"Thank god," she called back.

 

By the time he finished showering, stepping out of the small R.V. bathroom, he saw Rachel at the front of the vehicle, reclining in the driver seat and smoking silently. He dressed himself in whichever of his clothes passed the smell test and walked up in front of her, leaning back on the dashboard. She glanced up at him, smiling briefly in greeting.

"I see and smell a big improvement," she commented.

"Glad you approve," he replied. After a minute of silence between them, he glanced to her cigarette and asked, "It's a little early for that, isn't it?"

She shrugged. "Not that early."

He wasn't satisfied with that, continuing to try and lead her to opening up. "How'd yesterday go for you? You went to the Blackwell thing, right?"

"It was pretty fun. You make any good sales?" She turned his question back to him.

"Just the standard art school party package."

She nodded but didn't have anything else to say. Another silent minute passed before he spoke again.

"Rachel, you know, I get it if you've got shit you don't want to tell me, but don't insult me by acting like I'll fall for the same shit you pull on the kids at school."

She'd been taking a drag off her cigarette when he said it, and she stopped mid-breath, lowering it and clearing her throat when he finished. Her eyes avoided his; she looked like a kid who'd been caught raiding the cookie jar. At this point, it was a matter of whether she'd fess up or try to find another lie to cover her ass.

He was glad she didn't try it. "Sorry," she said. "Shouldn't have tried to pull that on you. That was a dick move. Thanks for respecting that I want to keep it to myself, though," she finished, telling him not to press it as politely and indirectly as possible.

"Yeah. Sure." As he stood up from leaning he grunted, walking to the back of the R.V.'s cab to find himself a pack of cigarettes.

While he stood up her eyes followed him and she turned slightly as he walked away. He was struggling with a near-empty lighter when he heard her sigh and say, just loudly enough for him to know he was being addressed, "I'll tell you in like, a day or two. There's just some stuff going on right now. I came over here because I've already got two people freaking out at me over it. I wanted a break."

The lighter clicked fruitlessly as he kept trying it. "Then I'll drop it. Do us both a favor and don't try to bullshit me again, though. Both of us are smarter than that."

"Why would I try twice if it didn't work the first time?" she joked. He snorted, not quite laughing. The lighter finally produced a small flame and he lit his cigarette.

Rachel stayed for about half an hour, silence filling the R.V. except for the sounds of breathing, Pompidou's occasionally movement between the two, and the tapping of her fingers on her phone's screen. When she left, it was without fanfare, a brief goodbye before she drove off. About an hour later he noticed his record book wasn't quite where he'd left it, and his suspicion grew despite himself.

 

* * *

 

Just around eleven in the morning, Blackwell Academy was finally waking up. A collective hangover seemed to fill the dorms after yesterday's Vortex Club party, and even those who hadn't attended had for the most part slept in. It was at least a Sunday for everyone. No classes, no alarm clocks, and no big plans.

In one dorm room, however, a phone buzzed angrily every few moments. Its owner tried to silence it, aiming for a snooze button, but through half-sleeping eyes found she was being woken by something much more difficult to ignore than an alarm. At least twenty text messages, with more coming in by the moment. The oldest were dated to last night, at some ungodly hour, but a new influx was arriving in realtime.

Victoria would have ignored the texts if they were from anyone else, but they were from Nathan, and whenever Nathan blew up her phone it was better to deal with it sooner instead of later. His crises always ended up being rather time-sensitive.

 

[11:21] left the party ill catch you later

[02:14] ar you awake

[02:14] victoria

[02:15] fuck

[02:57] is the nurse office open on sunday

[03:45] im going to fucking kill chloe price

[03:46] dyke bitch should kill herself

[05:23] do you know any chicks named max

[06:23] brown hair autistic as shit

[07:18] how long are you going to be asleep fucking hell

[08:02] are you awake yet

[08:04] you didnt get THAT fucked up at the party seriously

[08:38] i should be allowed in the girls dorm i fucking own the place anyways

[09:04] jesus christ are you awake yet

[09:04] victoria

[10:56] FUCKING

[10:56] RACHEL

[10:56] AMBER

[10:56] IM GOING TO FUCKING KILL RACHEL

[10:56] BITCH

[10:57] HER AND CHLOE

[10:57] DEAD DYKES

 

She squinted, trying to parse what he'd sent her. Texts from him were always pretty stream-of-consciousness, but clearly _something_ had happened here. She wasn't really surprised by whatever he was saying about Chloe Price- she didn't know the chick, but she'd seen her around. Some edgy punk chick she'd heard Nathan get pissed about before.

No, Chloe was not a surprise. What really threw Victoria off were his new texts about Rachel. She tried to figure out what could have happened to cause such a newfound loathing for her. Certainly Victoria didn't like her. Rachel Amber was a fake bitch and had the whole school wrapped around her finger. But up until now Nathan had been absolutely smitten with her. This was one hell of a change of heart.

 

What's going on? [10:58]

[10:59] rachels about to be a dead bitch thats what

What did she do? [10:59]

[10:59] she thinks shes real fucking hot shit

[10:59] i dont care who the fuck she thinks she is shes gonna fucking pay for this

Nathan. [10:59]

Calm the fuck down. [10:59]

[11:00] fuck off im not calming down this isnt just gonna blow the fuck over

[11:00] shes gonna fucking pay for this

 

She put her phone back on her bedside table and sunk back into her pillow for a moment. He clearly didn't want to elaborate on whatever was going on, and she'd have to wait for him to simmer down before he'd be lucid.

It was a few more minutes before she pulled herself out of bed, but she did eventually get to it. Her mind wandered as she started getting ready for the day, and while walking to the showers she started considering possible reasons for Nathan's outburst. It was, unfortunately, to little avail. Her best guess was that he'd finally asked her out and been turned down ungracefully, but that didn't seem right. Surely she'd have enough tact and sense to know to let him down gently.

She started factoring Chloe into it as she shampooed. Victoria hardly knew her, but she knew Rachel did, and they spent a significant amount of time with her. Had Rachel turned down Nathan because she and Chloe were already involved? That definitely could have sent him off. But again, it was out of character for Rachel, especially since she was already juggling at least a couple people without getting death threats from any of them.

Once she'd toweled off and dressed she started heading back to her room, still thinking over the situation. She passed a few people as she went; Brooke, who ignored her, Dana, who waved politely, and Rachel, who shot her a smile as she passed. Distracted, she hardly acknowledged any of them, continuing on her way.

After a moment, of course, she stopped dead in her tracks and turned around, realizing who she'd seen. "Rachel. Hey!" Victoria marched over to her, catching her just as she was about to leave the dorm.

Rachel had been startled for a moment when she heard her name but quickly smiled and turned. "Hey, Vickie, what's up?"

Victoria didn't particularly feel like wasting time playing along with the niceties. "I'm giving you ten words or less to tell me why Nathan's blowing up my phone saying he's about to kill you." She crossed her arms, waiting for Rachel's answer.

Rachel's eyebrows creased, and Victoria would have thought her confusion was genuine if her reputation didn't precede her. "I didn't know he was pissed at me. What did he say to you?"

"That's not your business. You just need to tell me what happened."

"I didn't know anything did," Rachel said. "I haven't even seen him since last night at the party."

"And nothing happened then? You didn't do anything to piss him off?"

"Of course not."

"Okay, then, tell me this: what about Chloe?"

"What about her?"

"Was she there? Did she fuck with Nathan? I know you're not dumb, Rachel, so don't act like it."

"No, I don't think she was there. Big parties aren't really her thing."

"A straight answer. I'm shocked." Victoria was tiring quickly of dealing with Rachel's evasive bullshit, so she started trying to wrap things up. "Okay, we've both got better shit to be doing, so I just have one more question."

"Shoot."

"Do you know any girls named Max?"

"That's kind of a weird question," she commented, raising an eyebrow.

Victoria offered no explanation. "Humor me."

Rachel thought for a moment before shaking her head. "No, sorry."

Unfortunately, Victoria had no way of knowing whether Rachel was lying. She studied her face, trying to make out any hints of dishonesty, but she didn't expect to find them`. If it were that easy to see through Rachel's poker face, her name would be mud in an hour flat.

After a few seconds of scrutiny, she gave up. She told Rachel, "Thanks for the help," openly derisive and ingenuine. Rachel had been cagey and useless, and now Victoria had no choice but to piece this together and handle Nathan some other way.

"Glad to." Rachel refused to acknowledge the barbed edge to Victoria's words, turning to leave the dorm with a parting "Catch you later!"

Victoria watched her go for a moment before sighing, a drawn-out and exasperated huff. There was nothing for it but to head back to her room and start networking. If Nathan and Rachel wouldn't tell her anything, she was perfectly able to figure it out for herself.

 

* * *

 

[10:54] Meet me at the Two Whales at 12. I just want to talk.

[10:54] If you bring a gun or no-show I'll change my mind on hearing your side of this.

[10:55] And if I don't hear your side, the cops won't either.

[10:55] Anyways, I really think you should show up.

 

For almost a full hour, Nathan had been staring at the messages and working himself into a frenzy. It was unthinkable. Everything about the last twelve hours was impossible, but this was the cherry on top of an ice cream sundae of bullshit.

Rachel Amber was _threatening_ him. The very thought made him clench his fists around the steering wheel, knuckles white. As if she had any right to try to control him. They were in Arcadia bay. Here, he was a god. She'd regret ever trying to jerk him around.

Below his anger, he knew that her punishment for this would really be fairly mild. Maybe he'd just scare her, remind her who was in charge of this town. No, Rachel wouldn't be the one to feel the brunt of his rage. That unlucky soul would have to be Chloe.

He still didn't know what she'd been doing at the barn, but he knew she'd threatened him, pointed a gun at him, and torn him up pretty badly. The broken spotlight had left his back and legs covered in cuts, stinging even now, and it was a very compelling reminder of everything he had to exact upon her tenfold.

His nose was also still swollen and painful after Rachel had tripped him, yes, but he didn't blame her as much for it. She hadn't known he'd have taken the fall so badly, he assumed. If she had, she would never have done it. He wasn't going to blame her for stupid mistakes like that. She was smarter than that, when she was sober, and she knew better than to pull a stupid stunt like breaking his nose on a concrete floor.

She _should_ know better than threatening him, too, but he'd make sure she learned that lesson soon.

It wasn't a very long drive to the Two Whales from Blackwell, and he arrived perfectly at 12 o'clock. He recognized Rachel's car in the parking lot as he pulled into the empty spot next to it. Killing the engine, he sat for a moment and considered the gun he kept in the glovebox. It wouldn't really be that helpful, would it? It wasn't like he could pull it out in the restaurant. But there was something comforting about having it on him, a sense of situational control he craved.

He stowed it in one of his jacket pockets. No harm in having it.

 

Entering the Two Whales, he was met with a wave of sounds and smells that did little to clear his head or calm his nerves. It was lunch hour, and the diner was at it's peak activity level for the day. If Rachel hadn't already gotten them a seat, a booth nestled in the corner, he wasn't sure if they'd have been able to.

As soon as he entered, she waved him over, having been watching the door. He marched over and sat across from her, as loud, sure, and intimidating as he could make himself. She didn't so much as flinch, which got under his skin much more than it had reason to.

"Glad you could make it." Her greeting was warm enough in tone, and she was smiling politely with her hands loosely clasped over the table, but he still got the impression she wasn't particularly pleased to see him. "I haven't ordered yet, but we've got fries and drinks on the way."

"Let's skip the bullshit. You didn't drag me here at gunpoint to talk about the fuckin' weather." He was trying to be obstinate and forceful, but to his surprise, she looked _relieved_ , dropping the niceties in a heartbeat and getting straight to business.

"Good, we're on the same page," she replied. "We're here because I want to know what the fuck happened last night." She was speaking just loudly enough for him to hear, but too quiet for any eavesdroppers to have an easy time of it in the loud restaurant.

"You were there," he argued. "How do you not know what was happening?"

"I don't know, it just gets real _fuzzy_ after you offered me a ride home. I think you should fill me in."

"I can't believe you said yes to that," he commented. "You were five minutes away from the dorms. How wasted were you?"

"Didn't you _just_ say we're skipping the bullshit?"

"I'm just saying, that was kind of stupid."

"No shit," she said, losing patience. It felt good that she was losing her composure, although the fact that she was so irritated with _him_ was less good. "Nathan, I'm here talking to you because I'm stupid enough to feel bad for you. If you don't want to take advantage of that, your loss, your fall to take. I can get up and leave and go on with my life."

"I don't need your fucking pity. You can't do shit to me."

"Maybe _I_ can't, but there's more evidence in that bunker than any lawyer can explain away. You and Jefferson are screwed." He didn't expect to hear Jefferson's name and it caught him off guard. He was visibly startled, but before he could respond, a waiter interrupted, passing two glasses of water and an unceremonious basket of fries off to the pair. Rachel smiled, thanking the waiter with a bright change in tone that lasted only until she was alone with Nathan again. All the pleasantry disappeared after that. "I've been doing my homework," she said. "So I wouldn't lie if I were you."

"You can't just _know_ that," he insisted. "Who told you? Nobody should know that except me."

"Answer my questions and maybe I'll answer yours."

"Fuck you." He honestly wasn't sure what to do. If she really did know everything, then lying would only lose him her favor and trust. But if she was just bluffing and he gave her information she didn't already have? He didn't even want to think about what Jefferson would do- though of course he did. Last night, as soon as he'd fled from the barn, Nathan had called Jefferson and told him everything, and he'd been met with a surge of anger that had actually been slightly terrifying. He was definitely glad the exchange had been over the phone and not in person- the embarrassment of crying would have stung much more face to face.

"How do I know you're not bluffing to get me to spill my guts? You could be full of shit."

"I could be," she agreed. "But you haven't got a lot of choice here."

She was right, as much as he hated it. "... So what do you want me to tell you, if you already know everything?"

"I want you to tell me _why_. That's the one thing that doesn't add up."

"... So you know about like… the stuff he does, right?"

"He kidnaps teen girls, photographs them, and kills them, yeah. I got that much." Her tone wasn't remotely upset or distressed, sardonic above all else, and it honestly unsettled Nathan to hear such detachment.

"He doesn't kill anyone," he said, rather defensive. "It's a studio, not a slaughterhouse. And I wasn't going to kill you, either. I don't know what the hell they told you, but all that I was trying to do was take some photos. Not even nasty shit. I just wanted to try and see if I could do what Jefferson does with a camera, you know? He said I didn't have the right eye for it and I wanted to prove him wrong."

"... Jesus Christ." She sighed audibly, steepling her hands in front of her face.

"What?"

"Did it not occur to you to just _ask_?"

"That's not how he does it," he argued. "He always talks about how if the subject is unaware it's more genuine."

"Why do you _care_?! You really don't get it! You're lending your secret bunker to a kidnapper-murderer with a photography fetish and all you've got to say about it is that you wish you could copycat him better?!"

"You don't get it! Of course you don't! He's not a bad person, he's just…"

"Nathan. Do you seriously believe that?"

"Of course I do-" he started to say.

Rachel talked over him immediately. "Think harder. I want you to actually think about whose side of this you're on, because if it's his, we're done here. So tell me: are you his accomplice or aren't you?" She leaned back in her seat, arms crossed as she reigned herself back in from her sudden surge of emotion. "Take your time."

He knew this was the real question, the reason she'd brought him here, so he did take his time to consider how to answer. Obviously, he was on Jefferson's side. He trusted Nathan, he had mentored him and taken him under his wing and always had time for him no matter what else was happening. Turning on him was unthinkable to Nathan.

But that didn't mean he should tell Rachel that. If she knew he was against her, she wouldn't trust him, and she'd tell the cops about everything without hesitation. If he played along with her, he could help Jefferson, and maybe even solve the mess he'd made without needing help. That would be more impressive than any photo he'd have been able to take.

"... You're right. He's a criminal and he needs to be stopped." He didn't feel like he was saying it convincingly enough, but Rachel seemed to accept it.

"Alright. Glad to hear it. So, I assume you're willing to get your hands a little dirty to make up for helping him until now?"

"What do you mean by that?" He frowned, already suspicious.

"I'm not asking much. I just want you to come with me to the Dark Room and help me take a little look around. Not a big deal."

She wanted to go back there? It had to be because she wanted to tamper with the scene, maybe leave something more incriminating there as an insurance policy. Maybe it was a trap to get Nathan tangled up in after all.

But two could play at that. If he could let Jefferson know to expect them at the Dark Room, they could shut this whole thing down in one fell swoop. There was still the problem of Chloe, and the new girl, Max, but he felt confident that they wouldn't be too troublesome. _Once we take care of Rachel it'll all work out._

He surprised himself at the morbidity of his train of thought; he'd made it sound like they were going to kill Rachel. Of course, that wouldn't happen. Jefferson was smart enough to find a way to handle this without hurting her, at least not badly. They could bribe her, or threaten her, or any other number of ways to handle it.

"Fuck it, why not? I'll meet you at the dorms at two."

Rachel opened her mouth to reply, but all at once she looked stricken, and he could see her eyes lock onto something out the window. He craned his neck, trying to follow her gaze, and saw a beat-up pickup truck parking. When Chloe Price stepped out of it, he understood completely. "You're not supposed to be here, huh?" He smiled smugly, enjoying greatly her panic.

"Eat shit," she told him offhandedly, too focused on panicking. She stood from the table, telling him quickly, "I'm not here. Fuck this up and the deal's off." She hurried to the restaurant bathrooms, disappearing through the door just as Chloe entered the restaurant. With her was the strange girl from last night, Max, and he was happy to see that her jaw bore an ugly bruise from his punch.

They were talking loudly, casual and friendly, and both looked like they were in high spirits, which he was less happy about. Nathan wondered if they would even notice him or if Rachel's panic had been unwarranted, until Chloe started scanning the booths for a free seat. As soon as her eyes fell upon him, all the joy in her face was replaced with loathing. Beside her, Max's gaze followed, and she grabbed Chloe's arm, looking like a scared kid. Her response left a certain warmth in his heart.

He didn't acknowledge the presence of either, keeping his eyes down and only following them with his peripheral vision. He even started eating, about as unobtrusive as anyone could ask, but Chloe had no intention of avoiding a conflict. She made a beeline for his table, and once she was about a yard away he looked up at her with as much disdain and disinterest as he could muster.

"What the _fuck_ are you doing here?" Chloe immediately started menacing him, placing both her hands on the table and trying to tower over him.

"Eating lunch. Nice face," he added to Max, who was lingering about a yard away. She moved her hand to her bruise automatically, gaze flitting between him and Chloe.

"I should wring your neck right here." His attention was pulled back to Chloe when she threatened him more directly.

"Big talk. If you're such hot shit, why don't you?" He took a casual sip of water.

She actually lunged for him, only stopped by Max grabbing onto her arm and yanking her back, hissing, "Chloe!" Even though she'd been stopped short, it had startled him and he'd spilled his glass over the front of his shirt. If he'd been irritated before, now he was on the brink of fuming. He was Nathan Prescott, and he wouldn't stand for the satisfaction plain on her face after seeing him flinch.

In the corner of his eye, he saw Rachel watching from the bathroom, the door open a crack so she could look and listen out into the restaurant. He didn't look up and give her away, but seeing her gave him an idea on how to turn this situation around to his liking.

"I almost feel bad for you. You take her bullshit hook, line, and sinker."

"Who? Rachel? I don't want to hear a fucking thing you have to say about her." Chloe started shutting him down almost immediately, but he wouldn't allow that to happen.

"You know she's playing you, right?"

"Oh, yeah, I'm gonna believe that from _you_."

"Don't take my word on it. Ask Frank."

He watched her expression turn from anger to actual begrudging consideration and knew his work was done, even as she protested, "No way. She wouldn't touch that creep."

"You don't look very sure of that," he gloated.

That rallied her and she came back around to anger, but he knew the seeds of doubt had been planted. "You're full of shit and I'm gonna make you regret ever trying to fuck with me."

"Chloe," Max chimed in from behind her, nervous. Nathan saw her looking over her shoulder at something, and he realized just as she looked back to him that she'd had her eyes trained on the bathroom door, which was now fully shut. Had she seen Rachel? He was about to start trying to un-fuck the situation when Max surprised him by tugging on Chloe's sleeve. "We should just go."

Chloe turned to her, anger in her eyes, and it looked like she might snap at Max, but after a moment she huffed, turning back to him with a parting glare. "Watch your back, Prescott," she said before turning to go, Max at her heels.

An empty threat, he knew.

 

As soon as the pair left the diner, Rachel stormed back to the table, and Nathan shot a smarmy grin up at her as she approached. "I got rid of them for you."

His shit-eating smile was abruptly ended in a flash of pain as she slammed her palm into his broken nose. Caught completely off guard, all he could do was cry out, swearing as it started bleeding all over again. A hand held up to it gingerly, he glared at her and started to shout- "What the fuck?!"- but before he could finish she cut him off.

"I should just turn you in and get this over with," she said, wiping her hand off on her jeans. "But since you've been _so fucking helpful_ , I'm letting you off easy. Let's go."

"What? You mean _now_?"

"Yes, now. Let's get this over with before you find another way to make my life hell."

"You can't seriously be pissed about that. She would have found out sooner or later even if I hadn't told her."

"It didn't occur to you that maybe I don't have the energy to deal with her bullshit _and_ yours right now?" She was genuinely, openly pissed, which was rare for her, but she was forcing herself to calm down even then, exhaling slowly before she spoke again. "Look, just pay for the food and get in the fucking car."

"What? Why am I paying?"

"You're the one who ate."

"But you ordered it, you set this up-" he argued until she cut him off.

"Nathan, I swear to god, you can spare five bucks and one afternoon to set all this shit straight. Pay for the stupid fries." She locked eyes with him, and they mutually glared for a moment before he conceded, pulling his wallet from his jacket pocket. His hand brushed his gun as he did it, a reminder that he _was_ in control of the situation, and paying stung his dignity a little less.

"Don't forget to tip," Rachel added from over his shoulder.

"I should have told Chloe you were here just to get you off my dick," he grumbled, replacing it with a ten. "You happy?"

"As a clam." She walked to the door, glancing over her shoulder to make sure he was following. He did, reluctantly, and as they exited the diner Rachel took out her keys, unlocking her car. "Get in."

"What about my car?"

"Leave it here. If this goes smoothly, you can come get it before you get towed."

He wanted to argue, but she was already opening the door and getting in, and he knew that going with her was his best chance to impress Jefferson and fix the situation as a whole. He thanked his own foresight for taking the gun ahead of time and he brushed his hand over it through his jacket, a comforting presence.

As he climbed into the car, Rachel addressed him. "By the way, I checked Frank's book and figured out what you were going to use. To keep me knocked out."

"Congrats, detective. Seems like fucking the dealer paid off after all," he joked.

She didn't laugh. "I'm allergic. I would have gone into anaphylactic shock and died."

He didn't have anything to say to that for a few minutes, and she looked vaguely disgusted at his silence as she pulled out of the parking lot. They were well on their way before he said, "If I'd known, I wouldn't have done it. I mean that."

She didn't take her eyes off the road to meet his gaze. "I hope so."

 

* * *

 

"He was lying."

The road fell away beneath the tires of Chloe's truck, and she was driving without a destination in her mind. All she really knew was that she wanted to be somewhere besides the diner, somewhere she could ignore what had been chewing on her mind for the entire silent trip.

In the passenger seat, Max looked up from where she'd been gazing aimlessly out the window. She didn't say anything, so Chloe continued.

"I mean, he has to be. There's no way she'd do anything with Frank, and even if she did, I'd know before Nathan. Right?" She glanced sideways at her friend, who looked nearly as distraught as she felt herself, slouched listlessly in her seat.

"I wouldn't know any better than you," she said noncommittally.

"But you would," Chloe realized. "You've got a couple months on me- you _have_ to tell me, if you know."

"Chloe, in the other timeline she was _dead_. I wasn't exactly asking her about her love life."

"That's not an answer."

"What do you want me to say? If I say she wasn't, you won't believe me, and if I say she was…"

"I just want to know the truth, Max. Please. I need at least one person in my life to be honest with me."

Max paused for a long few moments. "... I know she was involved with him, somehow. I don't know how much, or what she really thought of him, or anything like that. But… Nathan isn't lying."

It was a few seconds before Chloe talked again. "... Why didn't you tell me earlier?" She didn't turn to face Max as she spoke.

"Chloe, seriously? What was I supposed to do, show up out of the blue and say, 'hey, guess what, your girlfriend is about to die, but also she's cheating on you so don't feel too obligated or anything, just saying'?"

"I wouldn't have let her _die_ , Christ! I just- I have a right to know, and not telling me is basically lying for her. You covered her ass."

"You did, too," Max argued. "Last night we should have called the cops and you know it, but you sided with her anyways."

"That's not the same thing! She had a point, we were all dead tired and messed up."

"But it's my fault I didn't tell you she's seeing Frank within twelve hours of meeting back up?"

"Yes! Yes, it is, Max, because that's different! Look, I know you're not any kind of expert on social skills, but if you know someone's cheating on your friend, you say something! It's not that hard!" Her voice had escalated to a shout and she was driving recklessly, at least ten miles over the speed limit, and Max shrank in her seat.

"Chloe, I'm sorry, I messed up. I should have told you sooner. But please calm down."

Without replying to Max, Chloe honked her horn at another driver, passing them and flooring it to get ahead of them. Her hands were clenching the steering wheel, knuckles white, and her eyes were locked into a glare directly ahead of her. She was so wound up she might have been shaking with tension.

And then all at once it was gone, and she was slouched in her seat. She slowed the truck, swinging into the nearest parking lot on the street. Parked sideways across three spots, she killed the engine.

"Chloe? Are you … alright?" Max was relieved they were no longer flying down the street at a breakneck speed, but she looked over to see Chloe with her arms raised over her head, hands pulling at her hair. Max couldn't see her eyes, but she didn't need to to know she was on the verge of tears.

Very quietly, Max exhaled, trying to choose her words carefully and slowly.

"I know this sucks. I'm sorry. But it's going to be alright. I'm here, at least, and I'm not going anywhere. I'm here for you." She reached over, kneading her shoulder, trying to comfort her.

Loudly, messily, Chloe snorted, her nose starting to run as she lost the fight against tears. She wiped her face with her sleeve. "You know the way to the junkyard, right? Can you drive?"

"I don't have my license," Max said, but Chloe shook her head.

"I meant do you know how to drive a car. I really don't give a shit about breaking some stupid laws right now."

Max frowned, not sure whether to agree, but caved after a moment. "Yeah, I know the way. Scoot over." Neither could be bothered to leave the cab, so it was an awkward shuffle over and under each other to switch places, but they managed it, Max turning the key and cautiously pulling out of the lot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and here we are! i hope you're all ready for next chapter; it'll be a fun one, i promise that.  
> as always, comments and feedback are worth their weight in gold!!! <3  
> (by the way, thanks a million for all the kudos and like, 250 hits!! that's incredible and i'm flattered beyond words)
> 
> update 4/5/17  
> minor stylistic edits, nothing textual/plot related <3


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> brief note- this fic, as a general rule, will not go into content any more triggering than that present in the source material, but this chapter does delve into some of the worst of said source. proceed with caution! <3

The drive from the Two Whales to the Dark Room wasn't terribly long, but it still gave Rachel enough time to pore over the situation, torturing herself with most dreaded introspection.

She wanted to be angry with Nathan. Deeply and truly, she did. She shot a few tentative glares at him, saw him huddled in the passenger seat of her car and texting- Victoria, she suspected. Whether or not he caught her glares, she couldn't tell, but hoped he didn't after a few failed attempts to rile herself up. It was beyond even her legendary abilities to blame him for the problems she'd created for herself.

It was painfully clear to her as she sped down the empty road that she hadn't only been deceiving Chloe but also herself. She was completely delusional in hindsight- she was nearly _embarrassed_ that it had taken such a catastrophic failure to make it clear to her. There had never been any way that she would be able to retain both Chloe and Frank indefinitely.

What wasn't clear to her was what she would be doing about it, but that was a problem for later.

Right now she was only trying to do two things. Firstly, get confirmation and closure. She wasn't sure how much she trusted her savior who'd appeared in Arcadia Bay as if from nowhere, and whatever Max had told her, she wanted to see proof of this Dark Room's sinister purpose and Mark Jefferson's involvement for herself. Secondly, she wanted to make sure Nathan wouldn't take the fall for it alongside or in the place of Jefferson.

Exactly _why_ she was willing to stick her neck out so far on his behalf escaped even her. Maybe she wanted to make sure the brunt of justice was borne by Jefferson, who was clearly the instigator. Or perhaps she felt the need to pay him back for the wake-up call he'd delivered, regardless of his malicious intent.

Or maybe he was her friend and she didn't want to see anything bad happen to him

She didn't have time to chastise herself for that grossly sentimental thought. In what felt like no time at all, they'd arrived at the dilapidated barn owned by the Prescott family. It was her first time seeing it by daylight, but a gloomy, sinister feeling hung in the air even in sunshine.

"Well, we're here," she said to herself as much as to Nathan, who looked up from his phone. She read either anxiety or anticipation on his face. He was probably surprised she was really going through with this, she guessed.

"For what it's worth, I don't really care if you live-text all this to Victoria, but keep it vague. This isn't her problem and I don't want to drag her into it," she told Nathan as he pocketed his phone and opened the car door.

"I wasn't texting her," he replied.

"Oh? Who were you talking to?" She paused as she stood outside the car, making eye contact with him over its roof.

He fumbled over his words, caught off guard. "No one. None of your business."

She didn't press him further, but it was a reminder that mutual trust was certainly not present, and brought to mind something she really should have done earlier.

"Oh, hey- give me your jacket."

He went from slightly frazzled to panicked in a heartbeat. "What? Why?" he demanded.

"Because I'm cold," she lied, playing dumb. She knew quite well that in one of his pockets was a gun- she'd had a clear view of him stashing it from the diner's window- but thought he'd surrender it more easily if he thought she was clueless.

"It's like sixty degrees," he argued.

"I'm from California, this is like Antarctica for me. Just give me the stupid jacket." It was a half-truth; the air was chilly enough for her to get goosebumps, at least.

He eyed her for a moment, trying to discern whether she was up to something or really just cold, but ceded after a few seconds. "Don't get it dirty," he warned her.

"I'll swing by the dry cleaners on the way back," she promised sardonically, pulling it on. Just as she'd expected, there was a weight to one of the pockets, and she felt a blocky shape bounce against her as she started walking towards the hidden entrance at the side of the barn.

"I can just unlock the doors," he offered, watching her go with slight confusion.

"They look loud. Leave them shut so we can hear anyone coming," she explained. It was a trick she'd used before, albeit on a smaller scale. She motioned for him to follow her as she held aside the sheet metal concealing the hole in the wall that she, Chloe, and Max had used the night prior. Nathan began to reluctantly meander over, and she waited for him despite her impatience. She didn't want to spend any more time here than she needed to, but she knew better than to turn her back on him.

The lock on the trapdoor inside the barn was still broken, and Nathan knew by heart the combination to open the thick steel door of the storm shelter, so getting in was no problem. As she stepped inside and looked around the sterile bunker, she almost wished she'd had more time outside to prepare herself.

Last night, Rachel had been in a shape too poor to really take in her surroundings, leaving her memories of the Dark Room hazy and indistinct. That was a blessing she hadn't known to count until now. Sober and clear-minded, she noticed the disturbing artwork framed on the wall, the dried blood on the floor around a shattered photography light, and even the disquieting clinical scent the stale air carried.

"It smells like a hospital," she remarked with some disgust.

"Yeah. Drugs and blood," Nathan joked wryly, "smells like good times."

She snorted but didn't allow herself to laugh.

After taking a moment to give the room a once-over, she walked to the cabinet behind the desk, steeling herself as she stood before it.

One of the doors was cracked open, and she could see rows of red binders on metal shelves; this was what she was here for. She had no reason to distrust Max- the girl had, after all, saved her life- but she had to see for herself what was happening here. Proof of it all was in this cabinet.

Part of her hoped that maybe, somehow, it wasn't. From where she stood now, this could all be a big mistake, some grand-scale misunderstanding. As far as she knew for sure, the photography teacher was probably not a serial killer, Nathan hadn't been an inch from manslaughter. She wasn't twelve hours past a near-death experience. That was a much more reasonable version of the world, and if she left now, she could walk away and keep living in it.

For a few seconds, she pondered this, considering the decision she was making. Doubt was creeping in, despite how far she'd come down this rabbit hole. There was an intoxicating quality to the moment. Her last chance to cling to plausible deniability of it all and turn back.

Except, she realized, the point of no return was behind her. She'd crossed that threshold- been pushed over it, really- the moment Nathan told Chloe about Frank. This day had already flipped her world upside down once.

She briefly pondered whether up-ending her life twice in a row was roughly equivalent to setting it right as she pulled open the door to the cabinet.

There were far more binders than she had expected to find, each labeled with a name. All girls, as far as she could tell, with some labels crisp and new while others looked older and worn. In the former category, one stood out to her.

_Rachel_.

She pulled the binder labeled with her own name off the shelf and opened it.

The folder was empty, bar a handful of clear sheet protectors. She was caught off guard by the immense sense of relief she felt wash over her- she had expected the folder to be empty, logically, but apparently she'd developed a fear to the contrary.

Unceremoniously, she tossed it aside, aiming for the couch. She didn't realize until too late that Nathan was seated there, focused in on his phone.

"Sorry!"

He heard her exclaim and turned, questioning, but before he could say a word he saw the projectile binder flying straight at him. Reflexively, he jerked down out of its way, letting it clatter to the floor near the coffee table.

"Fuck, are you trying to kill me?" He looked disproportionately startled, and she couldn't help but feel amused by his reaction.

"You'd know if I was." She mimed a beheading.

He snorted, laughing for a moment before bending down to the floor from the couch to pick up the binder. As soon as his eyes scanned the name on its spine a look crossed his face that she couldn't place. The closest thing to it she could recognize was nausea.

"So, what was going in there?" she asked, despite both being fairly sure of the answer and not really wanting to know in the first place.

"The photos," he answered plainly.

"And that's what I'll see if I open the rest of these?"

"Yeah."

"Great. Okay. Cool." She turned back to the cabinet, steeling herself and unsure where to start.

After waffling for a few moments, she picked at random. She kept the binder closed and walked over to the couch, sitting a couple of feet from Nathan. Hopefully he would offer any commentary he had, or at least have the good sense not to try anything while she looked through the binder.

Even though she'd steeled herself, and even though she'd guessed at what she would see inside, she still wasn't ready when she opened it.

As soon as she saw the first photograph, an intense feeling of vertigo struck her; she felt like her stomach had turned inside out. It was worse, she thought in some detached part of her mind that refused to be dizzied, because it was close to home. The worst part of seeing this clearly drugged, bound, helpless girl was knowing how easily it could have been her.

The second worst part, which was much harder to acknowledge, was how much care had clearly been put into the photos. She wasn't any kind of expert- she knew much more about being in front of a camera than she did about being behind one- but every artistic principle she knew of was exemplified in the pictures before her. Whatever the subject matter, they were taken with obvious skill.

"Waste of talent," she muttered after a few moments, breaking out of the sickened thrall the photos had drawn her into.

"But you admit it is talent," Nathan commented.

"Does it matter? He's sick." She shut the binder, placing it on the coffee table a little more delicately than her own. It felt, in a strange way, like it would be disrespectful to the poor girl in the photos to toss it around. It was more likely than not that those were the last photos of her ever taken. _If it were me, I'd want them treated like they were sacred._ As soon as she thought it she felt her skin crawl- it was an "if" she didn't want to consider.

"Isn't that just art, though? Like, Van Gogh was sick, but that was like... his muse."

"Van Gogh killed himself, not teenage girls."

Nathan searched for a reply to that but didn't seem to find one.

"Even if he is some kind of savant, he's fucked up and he's dangerous," Rachel reasserted her point as she stood up and replaced the binder on the shelf. She didn't feel the need to search through any others and suspected her stomach wouldn't be strong enough to take it even if she wanted to. "Do you know the computer password?" she asked as she turned from the cabinet to the desk, met by a locked login screen.

"There isn't a password," he replied, twisting around to watch her from the couch..

"... Yeah, there is?" She glanced over to him from the computer screen.

He stood up, looking confused. "No, there shouldn't be one. There wasn't last time I was here. And he would have told me if he added one." The last part sounded like Nathan was speaking aloud to himself, trying to figure out what had happened, but Rachel took silent note of the remark. Had Nathan and Jefferson been in contact since last night? It was plausible.

"Well, any guesses? Do you know, like, his birthday or whatever?"

"Why do you want to get into the computer?" Nathan was openly suspicious.

"To figure out just how bad this looks for you," she replied honestly.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean if he has any emails that read, _hey, Nathan, come by and help me kidnap a teenage girl_ , that looks pretty bad and I don't want the cops to come in here and see that."

"I don't think he'd keep anything that incriminating on there," Nathan said skeptically. "He's smarter than that."

"And a day ago I thought you were a lot smarter than shit like this, so let's take nothing for granted."

"Look, I don't know what he'd make the password. If he didn't tell me he changed it, it was because he didn't want me in the computer anymore. He wouldn't make it something obvious." Nathan ran his hand through his hair, still apparently trying to figure out why he was out of the loop.

Fortunately, despite Nathan's unhelpfulness, Rachel had an idea, however unsavory it might have been. She swiveled in the desk chair and rolled back toward the cabinet, examining the binders one by one. They seemed to be in chronological order by age, so she moved to the very beginning and pulled out that binder.

As she opened it, she avoided studying the images too closely, instead focusing on the date printed in the corner of the old photograph. She spun back around and typed it into the password blank.

Bingo. The desktop sprang up after a few seconds of loading.

She noticed Nathan awkwardly standing over her, watching the screen over her shoulder, and commented, "Can you back up a little bit, dude?"

He shuffled back about a foot and continued to hover.

She tried again. "Go sit on the couch. This won't take long and then we can leave."

"Why can't I watch?"

"Because I want you to be somewhere I can see you." Aware of how distrustful she sounded, she continued, "I trust you, I swear. If I didn't I wouldn't be here. But you can't expect me to be even stupider than I'm already being just to prove that."

He hesitated, then sulked back over to the couch and sat down, pulling out his phone to occupy himself.

Only occasionally glancing over to him, she began the digital dumpster dive through Jefferson's files.

It wasn't a particularly fruitful search, although she was being as thorough as she could be. By the time ten minutes had passed she was so engrossed in her investigation that she almost didn't hear the sound of a car door slam outside.

At first, she didn't fully process the implications of it, wondering dully who had arrived, before realization hit her like a truck. She jumped up from the seat, looking immediately over to Nathan. Her first thought had been that he was the person outside, making some sort of cowardly getaway, but he was still in the room before her, standing from the couch and slowly walking around it toward her. It was the complete lack of surprise on his face that told her everything.

 

* * *

 

On the way to the junkyard, Max had insisted she and Chloe still pick up some sort of lunch together, and so they arrived in the graveyard of decimated trucks and vans and the one titanic bus with a bag of fast food between them.

Chloe was still rather listless, so after Max parked the car, she took her friend by the hand and led her to a pile of lumber boards near the forested edge of the lot. It was probably a bad idea, she reasoned, to take Chloe to the heart of her favorite place she'd shared with Rachel, so she avoided the clubhouse.

They sat beside each other, fishing french fries from the bag, and though neither spoke for several minutes Max tuned into the white noise. The wind in the trees; the groaning of old metal; the rustling of the bag and the occasional sniffles she heard from Chloe. It was peaceful, even after the last twenty-four hours she'd had. Time felt like it stood still, if only for a moment.

Indeed, it was only for a moment. When they finished eating, the empty paper bag threatening to blow away in the breeze, Chloe spoke after a long sigh.

"Sorry."

"For what?" Max replied, leaning forward to see Chloe's face. Her expression was still deeply upset, but not acutely. More generally depressed than breaking down.

"For yelling at you. I'm still mad, though," she added.

"That's… not fair, but okay," Max sighed. "I don't want to argue with you again."

"I think it's pretty fair," Chloe argued. "You disappear for five years, show back up, and you're lying to me left and right. I'm not just pissed about Rachel."

"What do you mean?"

"Don't play dumb, Max. You know what I mean."

"No, I really don't. 'Not any kind of expert on social skills', remember?" Max quoted Chloe's earlier outburst wryly.

Chloe winced. "I said I was sorry for yelling at you."

"It's fine," Max said, sincerity uncertain to Chloe's ears. "Just tell me why you're still mad at me."

"Because you keep lying to me and I've already got enough of that shit in my life. Out of my life, now," she added with a sigh.

Max frowned. "I know I should have told you about Rachel, but I don't know what else you're talking about."

"You're kidding," Chloe said, turning to look at her. "Time travel, Max? You're really standing by that?"

Almost immediately, Max groaned internally, and started trying to remember how she'd most effectively convinced Chloe of her abilities in other timelines. Maybe the 'what's in my pocket?' trick could handle this. She tried and failed to resist the urge to let her thoughts drift to _pocketses_ while Chloe continued speaking.

"Like, I don't blame you, I wouldn't want to say any more about it than you did, but you could have been honest with me. You should have been. Whichever side of that you were on."

"Chloe, slow down- what?" Max tuned back in, confused.

"That bunker- you called it the Dark Room- and the whole gross Jefferson thing. Were you part of that, or did you get…" She didn't finish her statement but looked at Max questioningly.

"Neither," Max answered, then doubled back. "Well- sort of? Closer to the second one, totally not the first. In a few timelines, I did-" she started explaining before Chloe cut her off.

"Max. Cut the timeline crap. Please."

"It's not crap! I proved it with the bunker door, you were there for that. I can prove it again if you want."

"You could have had the bunker door set up," Chloe said skeptically.

"Then give me something I couldn't have set up," Max insisted. "Like… I'll tell you what you've got in your pocket?"

"Okay, A, how does that prove time travel, B, you saw me get dressed this morning, you know what I have in my pockets."

"Well, what do you want me to do, then?"

"I don't know, not leave? Stop me from getting close to Rachel? Save my dad? Literally _anything_ worth doing with time travel that's not showing up out of nowhere and ruining my life?" As she went on she became increasingly loud; a nearby squirrel fled up a tree.

Max had wilted in the car, but that was because it was hard to stand up for herself to the driver of a speeding car she was inside. Here they were on level, solid ground, in more ways than one.

"Chloe, if you're mad, be mad, but don't be mad at _me_ for what Rachel did." She stood up straighter as she spoke, cool and composed, facing Chloe directly. "Go yell at her if that's what you really want, but don't take it out on me."

"But you _did_ lie to me! You won't even admit it!"

"I won't admit it because I'm telling the truth, Chloe, and you know it. We grew up together- you know I'm a shitty liar," she said, the slightest melancholy tainting her counterargument as she mentioned a simpler, happier time.

The melancholy softened Chloe just as much as herself. She sighed as she released tension in fists she didn't know she'd been clenching. "Yeah. Yeah, you suck at lying. Even when you really want to. Remember when-" Chloe began, a grin spreading across her face.

"Don't even say it," Max interrupted her, grinning despite herself. "God, Joyce was _pissed_ ," Max laughed for a moment before asking, "How is she? I know things are shitty with David, but besides that?"

Chloe shrugged, hesitating for a moment before sitting back down next to Max. "I think she's fine? She's tired most of the time from work, but it's not nearly as bad as it was right after Dad died. Step-douche's paycheck is the only good reason to keep him around."

"Paycheck isn't worth it."

"Yeah, honestly," Chloe agreed before pausing for a moment- "Have you even met him?"

"Other timeline," Max answered sheepishly.

"Of course," Chloe said, sighing and resting her head on her hand as she looked at Max, assessing her. "I honestly don't know whether you're crazy, full of shit, or for real on this."

"Are those all mutually exclusive?" Max asked.

"Probably not."

"For real, but with two-fifths to a third crazy mixed in," Max answered, with a sarcastically serious tone.

"Sounds about right," Chloe commented. A moment passed before she asked, "So how _were_ you going to prove it with what's in my pocket?"

"I've done it before, with other versions of you. Basically, I give up, so you show me what you have-" she was interrupted by an amused snort- "but then I rewind back to before you show me, and I know it then, so I can get it right the second time and you're super impressed and it's great."

"What did you say? 'Rewind'?"

"Yeah, that's what I call it."

"That's literally the dorkiest thing I've ever heard. You get a superpower and your first thought is 'hey, this is just like a VHS tape'," she teased Max.

"That's how it works, though! It's a good name for it," Max insisted. "It's just like rewinding a tape."

"Max, when's the last time you rewound a tape? Like, an actual VHS tape?"

"I don't know, a couple of months ago? There's still a bunch at my parents' house from when I was a kid. I was just having a nostalgia trip," she added, "I'm not secretly here from 2005."

"Could have fooled me," Chloe teased, smiling, before Max watched her face fall into the same defeated, depressed expression she'd had earlier. She sighed- "God, I can't believe this is real. You _or_ Rachel. Isn't that fucked up? Time travel and cheating are on the same level of unreality for me. Ouch," she joked weakly, obviously forcing a grin.

"Chloe…" Max frowned, reaching out to wrap an arm around Chloe, half-expecting to be pushed away.

Before she could say anything else, they were both distracted by the telltale buzz of a phone's text alert. They met eyes, both reaching into their pockets nearly simultaneously. It was Chloe's phone buzzing, lighting up with text notifications.

"Not her," she said almost immediately, an excitement Max had scarcely had time to notice already extinguished from her face.

She moved to put the phone away, but Max chimed in, "You aren't going to read it?"

"I don't really want to hear from anyone besides you right now, sorry to whoever it is. The number's not even in my phone, it's probably spam."

"It might be important," Max insisted, remembering clearly her phone sleuthing from prior timelines. "At least check."

Chloe raised an eyebrow, but ceded, unlocking her phone and opening the message.

 

[01:13] This is Victoria. Dana told me this was Chloe Price's number. If it's not, congrats on the free drama.

[01:13] The short version is I don't know what the hell is going on but I think Rachel's in deep shit and thought you might want to know that. Maybe do something about it.

[01:13] The long version is that I've been getting nonstep texts from Nathan about you, Rachel, and some chick named Max. I don't know why or what you three did to him, but I know he's pissed, especially at Rachel.

[01:14] Tough break on her, BTW. Sorry you heard it from Nathan.

[01:14] But what I wanted to actually tell you was that for some reason Nathan and Rachel are somewhere together and he's saying some weird shit about being pissed off but happy because he's going to 'fix this'. Whatever the hell that means.

[01:14] I haven't got the time or energy to deal with whatever shit she's gotten herself into, but if you care, something's up. Or if you don't care that's probably smarter LMAO.

[01:15] Any info you have on all this is welcome BTW. I don't know a whole lot.

 

They watched together as the texts arrived, Max's eyes darting from the screen to Chloe every few seconds to check her expression.

She seemed either confused or frustrated- it was hard to tell. Max's guess moved toward the latter when she saw Chloe turn off the phone and move to put it back in her pocket.

"Chloe," Max protested, "hold on. We need to-"

"No, we don't." She slipped her phone back into her pocket.

"What? What do you mean we don't? If Rachel's with Nathan somewhere she's in trouble. We need to help her."

"No, Max, we don't need to help her." Chloe sat back up and glared sideways at Max. "If she's stupid enough to put her foot back in this after we risked our necks to save her, that's her problem. Not mine, not yours. It's probably nothing anyways," she said, turning back away and rubbing the bridge of her nose. "Isn't this Victoria chick Nathan's friend? This is probably a prank all three of them are in on."

"I know her, she wouldn't make this up," Max said, not entirely confident in her own words. It would be below the belt if this were a prank, but then, below the belt was practically Victoria's go-to target. Not even to mention the amount of venom she'd seen her attack Rachel with posthumously.

Honestly, if Victoria's texts were Max's only reason for concern, she might agree with Chloe that this was probably nothing. But Max knew she'd seen Rachel at the Two Whales while Nathan and Chloe fought. At the time she'd assumed Rachel had just been pressing Nathan for information, which was a dangerous but reasonable thing to do. But if they had gone off somewhere together, and Nathan was in a volatile mood, real trouble might be brewing all over again.

Unfortunately, Chloe didn't have that context, and Max didn't want to offer it and become the target of her frustration once again. "If you want to go after her so badly, then fine, go," Chloe said dismissively.

"I don't have a car," Max protested, "and it's dangerous to go after her alone. Please, Chloe, just this once I need you to help me."

The growing anger on Chloe's face was visible, and Max winced pre-emptively before she even opened her mouth. " _Just this once_? What the hell was yesterday, then? I nearly got _shot_ for her! If she has a death wish that's her problem now, not mine!"

"That's not-" Max began, arguing back, but stopped herself and took a resolved sigh. "Look. Okay. If you don't want to that's fine," she said, trying to de-escalate that situation; a better plan than a dead-end argument had struck her. "I'll stay here. Just do me one favor."

Chloe raised an eyebrow at her, looking as if her patience was running very thin.

"Just… let me see the messages again, on your phone. For a second."

"Why? You just said you're not doing anything about them, why do they matter?"

"I think I might have misread something," she lied.

For a moment, Chloe eyed her, something like suspicion in her gaze. But she took the phone out of her pocket and handed it to Max.

As soon as it was in her hand she extended her other arm and began to rewind.

She knew exactly the moment she was aiming for, so it didn't take long to scrub back through time, watching their argument speed by in reverse. A couple of seconds before the texts arrived.

"-unreality for me. Ouch," Chloe joked weakly, obviously forcing a grin.

Immediately, Max set the phone to airplane mode, slipping it into her pocket as soon as she was done and before Chloe would see what she was doing. The text notification didn't come, the phone remaining completely silent. Without a response, Chloe's forced grin slowly faded, and she sighed, slumping over onto Max.

She was at an impasse; she wanted to comfort her friend, but she wanted to address the Victoria situation as soon as possible. _If it's actually nothing, I can rewind and take care of Chloe_ , she compromised with herself.

"Uhm," she said, searching for a lie to get her a moment away from Chloe. "I. I need to pee. I'm gonna go do that." Hopefully her awkward delivery would seem appropriate and not like an obvious excuse.

Chloe seemed to buy it, joking, "Pissing in the woods? That how you do it in Seattle?"

"Yeah," Max replied awkwardly as she stood up, walking quickly to the treeline on the other side of the junkyard.

As soon as she was definitely out of sight of Chloe, she pulled out the phone and took it off of airplane mode; the texts arrived, just as they had before, though all at once in a burst this time.

For a moment, she leaned back against a tree and reread the messages, staring them down as if that might solve the problem. Then she sighed and composed her reply.

 

[Max here. Don't text Chloe again, mssg me instead. XXX-XXX-XXXX [01:15

[This is serious and we need to talk about it [01:15

 

As she waited for Victoria to text her, she started deleting both the texts Victoria had sent Chloe and the ones she had sent from Chloe's phone. She felt bad, hiding this from Chloe, but it was worth it; whatever Chloe was saying or feeling right now, there was no way she really wanted to leave Rachel to die or worse.

Once the messages were deleted, she slipped the phone into her back pocket, and only  a moment later her own cell phone buzzed.

 

[01:16] You're Max?

[Not a lot of time for meet & greet [01:16

[01:16] Just making sure.

[01:16] ?What exactly has Nathan been saying? Do you know where he's going with Rachel

[01:17] Tell me what's really going on, first.

 

"You get lost?" Max was jarred from the phone screen by Chloe's voice, shouting from across the junkyard to her.

"Sorry," she called back. "Gimme a second."

 

[BRB [01:17

 

She quickly typed out a reply before pocketing her phone and returning to Chloe.

"Hey, Max, have you seen my phone?" Chloe called to her as soon as she walked back into view. She'd risen from the makeshift bench and was at the truck, leaning through an open door as she searched the cab.

Trying to mask the thud of Chloe's phone on the ground as she dropped it by the bench, Max called back just as she slipped it out of her pocket and let it fall, "I don't think so. Did you drop it?"

"I don't know, that's why I'm looking for it," she replied, frustrated, before leaning back out of the truck and sighing. "Not in the truck. Did I leave it at the Two Whales? We were only there for like, a minute."

"I'll call you," Max suggested, pulling out her own phone while she walked towards the truck. She scrolled through her contacts until she found Chloe and placed a call.

"So you've had my number this whole time" Chloe commented, but her bitter observation was cut short by the sound of a ringtone. It only took her a moment to pinpoint the noise, and she hurried back over to the bench, crouching to pick up her phone and dust it off. "Thanks," she said, wiping dirt off the screen. "I swear I checked over here, I guess I missed it."

"Glad to help," Max replied, trying to hide her guilty discomfort.

"You okay?" Chloe caught on, at least partially, standing and giving Max a questioning look. "I really am sorry I freaked at you, Max. I'm still kind of figuring out who I'm pissed at, and usually when that's the problem I just assume everyone, y'know?"

"... Not really, personally, but I get what you're saying," Max replied. "It's fine, I'm just a little out of it. It's been weird for me too."

"If half the shit you've told me is true, weird's an understatement," Chloe remarked. It was a moment before she turned and tried to make eye contact with Max. "You know what _is_ kind of weird?" She looked to Max for a moment before answering her own question. "Even though I don't really know if I believe you, I kind of want to hear what the hell went on? Like, in the other 'timeline' or whatever. Either this shit is totally crazy or you could write a kickass book. Maybe both."

"I… I'm not sure that's a good idea," Max said, averting her gaze from Chloe's. "Telling you, I mean. Also, it's been multiple timelines. I think a new one every time I rewind, actually. I don't really know exactly how this stuff works."

Chloe didn't regard her correction of the mechanics of time travel, but insisted upon her request. "Why don't you want to? What would it hurt?"

"It's just… the kind of stuff it's easier to sleep at night not knowing about. Even if it didn't happen to _you_ you." She was telling a half-truth. It was true that she didn't want to burden Chloe with events that didn't concern her, but she also didn't want to have to figure out a tailored version of the story that would be presentable to Chloe. There were some things she knew she would hold back even if she shared a synopsis of her experiences, and patching together a false version of it would be both unnecessary trouble and a needless lie.

"If that's true, that just means I want to know even more. Keeping heavy shit to yourself doesn't make it any less heavy," Chloe said, clearly speaking from experience.

"Maybe," Max admitted. "But it's over now anyways. I'm fine."

"Wow. Convincing," Chloe said sarcastically before adding more kindly, "It's okay if you don't want to tell me, though. I get it. Just, like… don't clam up on me, okay? And I mean that in general, not just about this. I know I can be a lot, but if I need to put on the brakes tell me."

"Will you, though?"

Chloe looked wounded for the blink of an eye before conceding, "I'll do my best. I can promise that. And if I don't, you've got total permission to kick my ass," she joked.

"Don't tempt me," Max said, just as lightheartedly.

They let the exchange hang in the air for a moment before Chloe spoke again. "It's so weird seeing you again. I'm not sure if I expected you to be totally the same or totally different from before, but whatever I expected, you're not that."

"Is that a compliment or a complaint?"

"Both?" Chloe grinned. "I'm glad you're back, if that clears it up. Even if you're totally nuts. You couldn't have timed it any better."

"Is that a pun?" Max raised an eyebrow.

Chloe reeled in feigned disgust. "God, no. I take it all back, get out of my city."

"I _second_ that."

"You're killing me, Max. Please."

"Alright, I'll stop. You're getting _ticked_ -" she started, but was interrupted by a playful swing of Chloe's arm, which she ducked to avoid, grinning. "Wow, no need to _clock_ me," she said, before promptly adding, "Last one, I swear!"

"Thank god," Chloe said, smiling too despite her exaggerated reaction. "Do you want to go somewhere else? This place is kind of a dump- _that's not a pun_ \- and I kind of need to go home anyways. I'm kind of gross, I didn't shower this morning."

"Sure." Max nodded and walked around to the other side of the truck to climb in.

As Chloe turned the key in the ignition, Max commented casually, "Hopefully _wheel_ get there soon."

Almost immediately, Chloe groaned. "Hush," she said, feigned exasperation given away by the grins on both of their faces.

 

* * *

 

"I can't believe it. You fucking snake." Time was of the essence, if there was any way out of this to begin with, but she couldn't bring herself to fight or flight just yet. She was too shocked to react. But not she was not shocked by him; she was in awe at her own stupidity. He'd been kiting her back here this whole time, and she'd played right into it. Sure, she'd been _suspicious_ , but she'd been distracted and hasty and ignored every bad sign she'd seen, and this was her reward.

Nathan Prescott wasn't just going to ruin her life today, he was going to take it.

_Not if I have anything to fucking say about it_ , she thought, trying to inspire herself with fabricated bravado. She tried to listen for footsteps, judge how close Jefferson was to the stairs, but could hear nothing over Nathan's stumbling words.

"Rachel, just chill, just stand there and don't freak out, okay? It's not- I don't want this to be bad for you, I swear to god, but if you piss him off that could make it bad. Just…"

She stopped listening to him almost immediately, more interested in the fact that he was slowly sidling between her and the plastic curtain leading to the exit. He wasn't letting her leave.

Unfortunately for him, she knew he didn't have much ability to keep her here. She walked around the desk, crossing the room and making a beeline for the exit with the most deathly serious expression and posture she was capable of it. About three feet from him, she put her hand in her pocket and felt the pistol inside.

She made eye contact with him. She knew that he knew about the gun. He knew that she knew about the gun.

He didn't know if she was bluffing.

She didn't know if she was bluffing.

Neither moved for a few heartbeats. Rachel moved to shove past him, and to her immense relief, he jumped back and away from her.

And as soon as she parted the curtain she collided with Mark Jefferson.

 

* * *

 

The driveway was empty when Max and Chloe pulled up to the house, parking the truck at the curb.

"Mom and step-ass are both at work, so we've got the house to ourselves for a few hours," Chloe explained as she unlocked the front door, Max only a few paces behind her. "I'm gonna jump in the shower," she continued, leading her up the stairs, "but you can do whatever. I think we have leftover take-out in the fridge, if you're hungry. You know where everything is."

"It hasn't been that long," Max affirmed.

"Five years. Or less?" Chloe asked to her as she reached the top of the stairs.

"Less," she replied, as they split off, Chloe walking to the bathroom while Max opened the door to her bedroom. "I'll just wait for you," she said, and ducked in when Chloe confirmed with a nod.

 

Chloe's bedroom was not quite as messy as it had been when Max visited in the other timeline, after Rachel had died and Chloe had dropped out. It was certainly unkempt- the bed was unmade, and dirty clothes were in a pile on the floor- but it gave the impression of a bedroom and not a hideaway. It didn't seem like Chloe spent days on end in here, living reclusively upon pizza and weed. It just seemed like a teenager's bedroom.

She flopped down upon the bed and pulled out her phone, addressing something she hadn't wanted to address until Chloe was no longer present.

 

[Srry about that [01:33

[Not sure how much I can explain to you [01:33

Jefferson (photography teacher) and Nathan have been meeting in a bunker out of town to work on illegal [01:33] photography shit

[Nathan is just in bc Jefferson is using him for money AFAIK but he IS involved [01:34

[Rachel was a victim who got away but now she knows too  much and I think Jefferson wants her dead [01:34

[01:35] Hold on. 'Victim'? 'Illegal photography shit'? Care to elaborate?

[Do I really need to? [01:35

[01:35] Yes, you do, if you want me to work with you on this.

[Jefferson kidnaps + drugs + photographs + kills girls for a super fucked up photography project [01:36

[Any questions? [01:36

[01:38] Do you have proof?

[I don't have any reason to lie to you. [01:38

[01:38] This could be a prank. Or you could be trying to fuck over Nathan.

[01:38] I don't even know who you are. You can't just expect me to take your word on this.

I don't have anything I could show you right now, but the stakes are high, Victoria. If you don't trust me, [01:39] Rachel could die. I need to know what you know

[01:39] Why don't you just call the cops?

[A lot of reasons [01:40

[Ok well [01:40

[1:40] That wasn't an option before because of reasons but actually right now that seems like the best thing

[Aren't you worried abt Nathan if the cops get involved? [01:41

[01:41] Max, I haven't seen you around, so I'm guessing you're new to Arcadia Bay.

[01:41] The last thing Nathan Prescott is in danger from is cops.

[01:42] You seem like you know more about this than I do, so I'll let you handle the call. I'm still interested in hearing more about this, though.

[01:42] Tomorrow let's have a chat about this. There's a coffee place down the street from Blackwell Academy. Meet me there at 4.

[No promises [01:42

 

Max felt deeply chagrined, but she was glad for the reality check Victoria had delivered. Rachel had certainly put herself in enough danger to warrant involving the police- it had been their plan anyways. This was by far the safest, simplest way to finish things, and she was almost embarrassed it hadn't occurred to her.

Before dialing 9-1-1, however, she sent one last text to Victoria.

 

[Thanks. I mean it [01:43

 

* * *

 

The first thing Rachel saw as she stumbled back was the gun in Jefferson's hand.

It felt like the world was moving in bullet time for the next few seconds. She saw that he was directly between her and the exit. She saw his face, that he was confused, but growing angrier in a matter of heartbeats. She saw his grip tightening on the gun. He was about to speak.

In this long moment, the span of a blink that seemed to drag on for minutes, she was hit with a realization. Until now she'd been playing against her strengths. She'd been trying to dig up the truth using nothing but lies. But in the span of a heartbeat the entire situation had changed, and suddenly, she needed to do what she did best.

"Thank god," she gasped, locking her wide eyes on his. "Mr. Jefferson, I'm so glad you're here."

She didn't even consider taking out her gun. If he saw, she'd be dead before she even had it out of her pocket. It was better to keep the ace up her sleeve, assuming Nathan didn't tell Jefferson about it.

_Yeah, because he's been so good about keeping secrets from Jefferson so far,_ she thought bitterly but betrayed none of her true emotion in her face.

Jefferson seemed confused, which counted as a success by her. He paused, not raising or lowering his gun, gazing at her levelly and analytically for a moment. She didn't allow a hint of insincerity to break her mask of relief.

And then after a long moment, he smiled, as genuine as any smile she'd ever seen him wear. It was almost intoxicatingly familiar, after months of his classes. He had always exuded a feeling, when she spoke to him at school, that he was both deeply interested in whatever she had to say or show him, and that he was deeply invested in her personally- that her growth and development not just as a student but as an artist was the most important thing in the world. She'd noticed it as soon as the first day and made mental note of it, spent weeks trying to figure out whether it was a facade not unlike her own or somehow genuine.

It was now she realized that she had believed it wholeheartedly, though she had never admitted that to herself. And she had made herself terribly vulnerable without ever knowing fully.

But she didn't have time to beat herself up over that yet.

"Calm down," he said soothingly. "Everything's going to be okay," he assured her, lowering his gun to leave it half out of sight, probably hoping she would forget he had it.

She took a step toward him; ideally, he'd think she saw him as safety, and buy further into her act. In reality she was quickly considering her chances of slipping past him and running for the exit before he could grab her or shoot her. It wasn't a bad chance- he'd be surprised, and that would give her a head start- but it wasn't a good one either. The stairs would be slow going, and a straight hallway was a good place to take a bullet to the back.

The judgement call was made for her when he reached out and took her by the arm. In any other context, his firm grip would have been reassuring and grounding, but she knew it for what it was. He was making sure she wouldn't do exactly what she'd been planning. And by the arm, he led her back through the plastic curtain into the main room, while she assured herself baselessly that another chance to escape would present itself later.

Perhaps not entirely baselessly. She still felt the weight in her pocket.

"Mr. Jefferson!" As soon as they stepped back through the curtain, Nathan stumbled back away from it, eyes darting confusedly between Jefferson and Rachel, who had leaned into the teacher's grip.

Before Nathan could say anything else, Jefferson shot him a glance with so much sudden venom that it shot a chill down Rachel's spine, especially when he turned back to her a heartbeat later still smiling. "Rachel, sit down so we can talk," he suggested to her as Nathan shrank away in the background.

She considered resisting, pressing him for information, but after a moment decided to comply, walking listlessly over to the sofa. She seated herself, knees together and hunched over slightly to give the impression of continued fear, as well as to hide her face somewhat. Her back was to Jefferson, Nathan, and most importantly the door, which set her on edge, but she reassured herself that the illusion of panic remained an illusion.

It was about a minute before someone stepped into her field of view again. Jefferson stood in front of her, holding down a bottle of water. Immediately her eyes were on the cap; she was surprised to see the seal unbroken. Either he'd gone to a lot of trouble tampering with it or it was really just water.

"Just calm down," he repeated, patiently waiting for her to take the bottle, "and talk to me."

She slowly reached out and took the water bottle, twisting off the cap but not taking a drink yet. "Mr. Jefferson," she said, "What's going on?"

"You're a smart girl, Rachel," he said, turning the question back on her. "What do _you_ think is going on?"

He wasn't going to offer her any information freely, then. She didn't expect him to, but it was worth a shot. "I don't know," she began. "Last night, I was at the Vortex party, then I was here, with Nathan, and then I don't really remember much, but I remembered here, and so I asked him- I wanted to come back, I was confused, but now I'm just- I really don't know what's happening."

She didn't want to risk naming Max and Chloe, in case Nathan hadn't already mentioned them, and more generally it seemed prudent to stay as vague as possible. It helped the illusion of a confused, scared girl. So did the terrified tears welling up in her eyes, and the tightening of her throat as she started crying. All crocodile tears, she assured herself. She was in control.

Without thinking about it, she took a drink from the bottle, surprised by how dry her mouth had gotten. It just tasted like water, which she knew meant nothing, but if she was being poisoned or drugged she was doomed from the first sip, so she took a long drink, trying to calm herself.

"He hasn't told you anything?" Jefferson asked, sounding shocked with Nathan but obviously fishing for information.

"A little," she ventured, lowering the bottle. "We- the photos. He showed me." She cast her eyes down toward the binder still resting on the table in front of the couch. Then she looked up at him and took a chance.

"Did you take them?" she asked, then interrupted him as soon as he opened his mouth to answer, adding on a gamble, "They're beautiful."

It was a subtle change in his expression, the appearance of smug pride, that told her she'd hit her mark.

"I'm glad you appreciate them. You've always had an eye for quality, haven't you, Rachel? That's something we have in common. The eye of an artist. It's something you can't teach, I've found. Some people don't see the world on the level we do, no matter how hard they try." He glanced pointedly up- she assumed toward Nathan- while she marveled at how eager he was to monologue.

"I remember, Rachel, on the first day of class, you mentioned that you liked my work. I appreciated that- but I'm glad you're getting to see what I'm really capable of. It's not a waste to create a masterpiece no-one will ever see, but it's frustrating sometimes. You understand that, don't you?"

She wasn't sure she knew what he was talking about, but she nodded regardless, taking another sip of water.

"Of course you do. You have a dream you want to share with the world too. And, if you want, Rachel," he said, locking eyes with her, "I think I know how I can help both of us."

"You had a binder with my name on it," she stated, looking away from him and to where it had landed on the floor.

He nodded, still smiling. "You're a smart girl, Rachel. We can help each other."

"... I'm a mess," she said, floundering. "I can go clean up and come back, and we can do this," she tried, knowing it was an inane suggestion.

"You don't need to do that," he assured her. "You won't even need to be awake. I'll take care of everything."

"You're going to knock me out?" she asked, faking incredulence to hide mounting terror.

It was then that Nathan crept up beside Jefferson and whispered something to him, with all the fear and hesitance of a beaten dog approaching its owner to beg for scraps. Despite straining her ears, she couldn't make out what Nathan said, but heard Jefferson reply, "That just makes this easier. Go get one ready," he ordered him.

Nathan didn't immediately back away, standing indecisively behind Jefferson and looking between him and Rachel.

"It's going to be fine," Jefferson assured Rachel, compensating for Nathan's behavior. "You probably won't even remember any of this afterwards- that's a big weight off your shoulders, isn't it?" He smiled. "I just need you to trust me."

That was the moment she knew she was doomed. She had hesitated on her last chance for survival, after getting way too deep into a situation over her head, after spending the last half of her life getting in too deep on everything she possibly could.

Her heart twinged painfully when it occurred to her that she wouldn't live to apologize to Chloe.

She wanted desperately for some dramatic escape, or at least some poignant last words. Maybe something Nathan would recognize as a message to Chloe, or that would change his mind on Jefferson, or exact some kind of revenge for every other girl who had been where she was now. Or at the very least, something to remember her by.

Nothing came to her.

"Okay," she replied to Jefferson. Then she found Nathan's gaze, which passed over her for a single moment as he walked toward the storage room, and said, "I trust you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry about the wait on this one!!! life got away from me for a while there, but hopefully i should be more productive as the semester winds down and summer approaches! <3 when i started this fic, i was aiming for monthly updates, and i aim to resume that schedule from here on out!  
> <3 i hope you all enjoy!

**Author's Note:**

> 9/14/17  
> https://pastebin.com/YkdcMHsp  
> an update on the status of this fic  
> TL;DR it absolutely is going to be finished, but it will be released all at once instead of chapter by chapter, so it will be a while  
> until then, thank you all for the love and support for FD <3
> 
> 12/20/17  
> if i was set on writing this fic already i am doubly so now because we deserve a better ending to these kids' story than whatever the fuck that was  
> i am in the process of rewriting the existing chapters to fit the new BtS canon and reworking some plot points from later on in FD; since i'm on winter break, i'll probably finish it sometime in january, ideally, but definitely won't release before Farewell drops and i can make any last minute edits


End file.
